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AURELIUS XUGUSTINE,

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A NEW TRANSLATION. \^/CAL St'

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REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A.

VOL. I.
THE CITY OF GOD,

VOLUME I.

EDINBUEGH:
T. & T. CLAEK, 38, GEOKGE STKEET.

MDCCCLXXI.

PlilNTED BY MURRAY AND GIIJH,

T. k T. CLAKK, EDIXBUROH.

LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DUBLIN, .... JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO.
NEW YORK, . . . C. .SCRIBNER AND CO.

:^^-i OF Kjreer:

THE

!. 1924

CITY OF GOD.

Cran£(latctf Dp tl^t

REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A

VOLUME I.

EDINBUEGH:
T. & T. CLAEK, 38, GEOEGE STEEET.

MDCCCLXXI.

Of the following Work, Books IV. XVII. and XVIII. liavc been translated
by the Rev. George Wilson, Olenluce ; Books V. VI. VII. and VIII. by
the Eev. J. J, Smith.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

PACK

Augustine censures tlie pagans, who attributed the calamities of the
world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Chris-
tian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods, . . 1

BOOK II.

A review of the calamities suffered by the Romans before the time of
Christ, showing that their gods had plunged them into corruption
and vice, 48

BOOK III.
The external calamities of Rome, 91

BOOK IV.
That empire was given to Rome not by the gods, but by the One True

God, 135

BOOK V.

Of fate, freewill, and God's prescience, and of the source of the virtues

of the ancient Romans, 1'"''

BOOK VI.

Of Varro's threefold division of theology, and of the inability of the

gods to contribute anything to the happiness of the future life, . 228

BOOK VII.

Of the "select gods" of the civil theology, and that eternal life is not

obtained by worshipping them, ...... 2«^^

VI CONTENTS.

BOOK VIII.

I'AGB

Some account of tlie Socratic and Platonic philosophy, and a refuta-
tion of the doctrine of Apulcius that the demons should ]x' wor-
nliipped as mediators between gods and men, .... 305

BOOK IX.

Of those who allege a distinction among demons, some Ix-ing goo<l and

others evil, ij.'iS

BOOK X.
Porjdiyry's doctrine of redemption, ....... 382

BOOK XL

Augustine passes to the second part of the work, in whicli the origin,
progress, and destinies of tlie earthly and heavenly cities are dis-
cus.sed. — Speculations regarding the creation of the world, . . 436

BOOK XII.

< >f tlu' ireation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil, . 481

BOOK XIII.

Tliat death in penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, ... 521

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

ROME having been stormed and sacked by tlie Goths
under Alaric their king/ the worshippers of false
gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt
to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began
to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted
bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal
for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the
defence of the city of God against the charges and misre-
presentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands
for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by
many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention,
and which I could not defer. However, this gi'eat undertak-
ing was at last completed in twenty- two books. Of these,
the first live refute those who fancy that the polytlieistic
worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity,
and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us
in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five
books I address myself to those who admit that such cala-
mities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend,
the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more
or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and
persons on whom they light, but, while admitting this, main-
tain that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life
to come. In these ten books, then, I refute these two
opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to
the Christian religion.

" But that no one might have occasion to say, that though
I had refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to
establish my own, I devote to tliis object the second part of

^ A.D. 410.

Vlil EDITORS PREFACE.

this work, which comprises twelve books, althou^rh I have
nut scriij)led, as occasion offered, either to advance my own
(>])ini(jns in the first ten books, or to demolish the ar<,n.iments
of my opjxjnents in the last twelve. Of these twelve books,
the lirst four contain an account of tlie orij^nn of these two
cities — the city of Goil, and tlie city of the world. The
second four treat of tlieir liistory or progress ; the third and
last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, thougli all
these twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have
named them after the better city, and called them The City
of God."

Sucli is the account given by Augustine himself^ of the
occasion and plan of tliis his greatest work. But in addition
to this explicit information, we leam from the coiTCspondence'^
of Augustine, that it was due to tlie importunity of his friend
Marcellinus that this defence of Christianity extended beyond
the limits of a few letters. Shortly before the fall of Rome,
Marcellinus had been sent to Africa by the Emperor Ilonorius
to arrange a settlement of the differences between the Uona-
tists and the Catholics. This brought him into contact not
only with Augustine, but with Volusian, the proconsul of
Africa, and a man of rare intelligence and candour. Finding
that Volusian, though as yet a pagan, took an interest in the
Christian religion, ]\Iarcellinus set his heart on converting
him to the true faith. The details of the subsequent signifi-
cant intercourse between the learned and courtly bishop and
the two imperial statesmen, are unfortunately almost entirely
lost to us ; but the impression conveyed by the extant corre-
spondence is, that Marcellinus was the means of bringing his
two friends into comnumication witli one another. The first
overture was on Augustine's i)art, in the shape of a simple
and manly request that Volusian would carefully ])eruse the
Scriptures, accom])anied by a frank offer to do his best to
solve any difficulties that might arise in such a coui-se of
infiuiry. A'olusian accordingly enters into con-espondence
with Augustine; and in order to illustrate the kind of difii-
culties experienced \)y men in liis ])osition, he gives some
graphic notes of a conversation in whicli lie had recently

' IMracfatiotis, ii. 43. ' Letters 132-8.

EDITOR S PREFACE. ix

taken part at a gathering of some of liis friends. The difti-
culty to which most weight is attached in this letter, is the
apparent impossibility of believing in the Incarnation. But
a letter which Marcellinus immediately despatched to Augus-
tine, urging him to reply to Volusian at large, brought the
intelligence that the difficulties and objections to Christianity
were thus limited merely out of a courteous regard to the
preciousness of the bishop's time, and the vast number of his
engagements. This letter, in short, brought out the important
fact, that a removal of speculative doubts would not suffice
for the conversion of such men as Volusian, whose life was
one with the life of the empire. Their difficulties were rather
political, historical, and social. They could not see how the
reception of the Christian rule of life was compatible with
the interests of Eome as the mistress of the world.^ And
thus Augustine was led to take a more distinct and wider
view of the whole relation which Christianity bore to the old
state of things, — moral, political, philosophical, and religious,
— and was gradually drawn on to undertake the elaborate
work now presented to the English reader, and which may
more appropriately than any other of his writings be called
his masterpiece^ or life-work. It was begun the very year of
Marcellinus' death, a.d. 413, and was issued in detached
portions from time to time, until its completion in the year
426. It thus occupied the maturest years of Augustine's
life — from his fifty-ninth to his seventy-second year.^

From this brief sketch, it wiU be seen that though the
accompanying work is essentially an Apology, the Apologetic
of Augustine can be no mere rehabilitation of the somewhat
threadbare, if not effete, arguments of Justin and TertuUian.'^
In fact, as Augustine considered what was required of him, —
to expound the Christian faith, and justify it to enlightened

* See some admirable remarks on this subject in the useful work of Beugnot,
Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme, ii. 83 et sqq.

2 As Waterland (iv. 760) does call it, adding that it is **his most learned,
most correct, and most elaborate work. "

^ For proof, see the Benedictine Preface.

^ "Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular exigencies :
they were either brief and pregnant statements of the Christian doctrines ; re-
futations of prevalent calumnies ; invectives against the follies and crimes of

EDITOR S PREFACE.

men ; to distinguish it from, and show its superiority to, all
those forms of truth, philosophical or popular, wliich were
then striving for the mastery, or at least for standing-room ;
to set bef(jre the world's eye a vision of glory that might win
the regard even of men who were dazzled by the fascinating
splendour of a world-wide empire, — he recognised that a task
was laid before liiin to ^\'hich even his powers might prove
unequal, — a task certainly which would afford ample scope for
liis learning, dialectic, philosophical gi'asp and acumen, elo-
quence, and faculty of exposition.

But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests
it at once with grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven
hundred years of steady and triumphant progress, llome had
been taken and sacked. It is difficult for us to appreciate,
impossible to overestimate, the shock which was thus com-
nmnicated from centre to circumference of the whole known
world. It was generally believed, not only by the heathen,
but also by many of the most liberal-minded of the Christians,
that the destruction of Kome would be the prelude to the
destruction of the w^orld.^ Even Jerome, who might have
been supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress
of the world by her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal
his profound emotion on hearing of her fall. " A terrible
rumour," he says, " reaches me from the West, telling of Eome
besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property
perishing togetlier. ]\Iy voice falters, sobs stifle the words I
dictate ; for she is a captive, that city wliich enthralled the
world." ^ Augustine is never so theatrical as Jerome in the
expression of his feeling, but he is equally exjdicit in lament-
ing the faU of Home as a great calamity ; and while he does
not scru])le to ascribe her recent disgrace to tlie profligate

J*af,'anism ; or coiifuUitions of anti-riiristian works like tliose of Cclsus, Por-
l»hyry, or Julian, closely following their course of argument, and rarely expand-
ing into general and conjpreheusive views of the great conflict." — Milman,
lllstorii of i'hrintlnmtif, iii. c. 10. AVe are not acijuainted with any more
comiilete preface to the City of (Jwl tlian is contained in the two or three pages
which Milnian lias devoted to this subject,

' See the interesting remarks of Lactmitius, ImtU. vii. 25.

' "Hffiret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictautis. C'apitur urbs qua»
totum cepit orbem." — Jk]!o.me, iv. 783.

EDITOR S PEEFACE. XI

manners, the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is
not without hope that, by a return to the simple, hardy, and
honourable mode of life which characterized the early Eomans,
she may still be restored to much of her former prosperity.^
But as Augustine contemplates the ruins of Rome's greatness,
and feels, in common with all the world at this crisis, the
instability of the strongest governments, the insufficiency of
the most authoritative statesmanship, there hovers over these
ruins the splendid vision of the city of God " coming down
out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband." The old
social system is crumbling away on all sides, but in its place
he seems to see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that
human liistory and human destiny are not wholly identified
with the history of any eartlily power — not though it be as
cosmopolitan as the empire of Rome.^ He directs the atten-
tion of men to the fact that there is another kingdom on
earth, — a city wliich hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He teaches men to take profounder views of
history, and shows them how from the first the city of God,
or community of God's people, has lived alongside of the
kingdoms of this w^orld and their glory, and has been silently
increasing, " crescit occulto velut arbor sevo." He demon-
strates that the superior morality, the true doctrine, the
heavenly origin of this city, ensure its success ; and over
against this, he depicts the silly or contradictory theorizings
of the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the
people, and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the
presence of so manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome's down-
fall, there is room for imputing it to the spread of Chris-
tianity. He traces the antagonism of these two grand com-
munities of rational creatures back to their first divergence
in the fall of the angels, and down to the consummation of all
things in the last judgment and eternal destination of the good
and evil. In other words, the city of God is " the first real
effort to produce a pliilosophy of history,"^ to exhibit historical

1 See below, iv. 7.

2 This is well brought out by Merivale, Conversion of the Roman Empire,
p. 145, etc.

2 Ozanano, History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), ii. IGO.

Xll EDITOR S PREFACE.

events in connection with their true causes, and in tlieir real
sequence. This plan of the work is not only a great concep-
tion, but it is accompanied with many practical advantages ;
the chief of which is, that it admits, and even requires, a full
treatment of those doctrines of our faith that are more directly
historical, — the doctrines of creation, the fall, tlie incarnation,
the connection between tlie Old and Xew Testaments, and the
doctrine of "the last things."^

The effect produced by this great work it is impossible
to determine with accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness
which we should condemn as presumption in any less com-
petent authority, declares that its effect can only have been
very slight.''^ Probably its effect would be silent and slow ;
telling first upon cultivated minds, and only indirectly upon
the people. Certainly its effect must have been weakened
by the interrupted manner of its publication. It is an easier
task to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this also patristic
and literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that it
is very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of
matters which are introduced to illustrate and forward the
argument, but censures the author for discussing very useless
questions, and for adducing reasons which could satisfy no
one who was not already convinced.^ Huet also speaks of
the book as " un amas confus d'excellents materiaux ; c'est de
Tor en barre et en lingots."* L'Abbe Flottes censures these
opinions as unjust, and cites witli approl)ation the unqualified
eulogy of Pressens(^.^ But probably the popularity of the
book is its best justification. This poi)ularity may be
measured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467
and the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty

' Abstracts of tho work at f^rcatcr or less Iciif^th are f^ivi'ii by ]>uitin, HiuJe-
niann, Biihringcr, roujoulat, Ozanam, and otlicrs.

' IIi.s words are : " Plus on examine la Cite de Dieu, plus on reste convaincu
que cet ouvraf^e dut cxcrcea tre.s-peu d'influence sur I'esprit des paiens" (ii. 122);
and this though he thinks one cannot but be stnick with the grandeur of the
ideas it conUiins.

3 IIiHtory of EcclesiaHtical Writers, i. -lOiJ.

* Ifuetiana, p. 24.

* FlottcM, Etitde.H sur S. AurjuMin (Paris, 1861), pp. ir»4-t>, one of the most
accurate and interesting even of French monographs on theological writers.

editor's preface. xiii

editions were called for, that is to say, a fresh edition every
eighteen months.^ And in the interesting series of letters
that passed between Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus, who had
engaged him to write a commentary on the City of God for
his edition of Augustine's works, we find Vives pleading for
a separate edition of this work, on the plea that, of all the
writings of Augustine, it was almost the only one read by
patristic students, and might therefore naturally be expected
to have a much w4der circulation.^

If it were asked to what this popularity is due, we should
be disposed to attribute it mainly to the great variety of ideas,
opinions, and facts that are here brought before the reader's
mind. Its importance as a contribution to the history of
opinion cannot be overrated. We find in it not only indica-
tions or explicit enouncement of the author's own views upon
almost every important topic which occupied his thoughts,
but also a compendious exhibition of the ideas which most
powerfully influenced the life of that age. It thus becomes,
as Poujoulat says, " comme I'encyclopedie du cinquieme siecle,"
All that is valuable, together with much indeed that is not so,
in the religion and philosophy of the classical nations of
antiquity, is reviewed. And on some branches of these sub-
jects it has, in the judgment of one well qualified to judge,
" preserved more than the whole surviving Latin literature."
It is true we are sometimes wearied by the too elaborate
refutation of opinions which to a modern mind seem seK-
evident absurdities ; but if these opinions were actually pre-
valent in the fifth century, the historical inquirer wiU not
quarrel with the form in which his information is conveyed,
nor will commit the absurdity of attributing to Augustine tlie
foolishness of these opinions, but rather the credit of explod-
ing them. That Augustine is a well-informed and impartial

^ These editions will be found detailed in the second volume of Sclioenemann's
Bihliotheca Pat.

2 His words (in Ep. vi.) are quite worth quoting: "Cura rogo te, ut excu-
dantur aliquot centena exemplarium istius operis a reliquo Augustini corpore
separata ; nam multi erunt studiosi qui Augustinum totum emere vel nollcnt,
vel non poterunt, quia non egebunt, seu quia tantum pecuniai non habebunt.
Scio enim fere a deditis studiis istis elegantioribus prseter hoc Augustini opus
nullum fere aliud legi ejusdem autoris."

XIV EDITOR S PREFACE.

critic, is evinced by the courteousness and candour which he
uniformly displays to his opponents, by the respect he won
from the heathen tliemselves, and by his own early life. The
most rigorous criticism has found him at faidt regarding
matters of fact only in some very rare instances, which can
be easily accounted for. His learning would not indeed stand
comparison with what is accounted such in our day: his
life was too busy, and too devoted to the poor and to the
spiritually necessitous, to admit of any extraordinary acqui-
sition. He had access to no literature but the Latin ; or at
least he had only sufficient Greek to enable him to refer to
Greek authors on points of importance, and not enough to
enable him to read their ^vTitings with ease and pleasure.^
But he had a profound knowledge of liis o^\^l time, and a
familiar acquaintance not only witli the Latin poets, but with
many other authors, some of whose writings are now lost to
us, save the fragments preserved through his quotations.

But the interest attaching to the City of God is not merely
historical It is the earnestness and ability witli which he
developes his own philosophical and theological views which
gi'adually fascinate the reader, and make him see why the
world has set this among the few greatest books of all time.
The fundamental lines of tlie Augustinian theology are here
laid down in a comprehensive and interesting form. Xever
was thought so abstract expressed in language so popular.
He handles metaphysical problems with the unembarrassed
ease of Plato, with all Cicero's accuracy and acuteness, and
more tlian Cicero's profundity. He is never more at home
ihiiTi when exposing the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or
demonstrating tlie liarmony of Christian doctrine and true
])]iilo.sophy. And though there are in the Citj/ of God, as
in nil ancient books, things that seem to us childish and
Itarron, there are also the most surprising antici]nitions of
modern speculation. Tliere is an earnest grappling with
those problems wliich are continually re-opened because they
underlie man's relation to God and the spiritual world, — tlie

' Hie fullest and f.iirf^t disriission of the very simple yet never settled ques-
tion of Auj:^i.stine's leaniing will be found in Nourrisson's Philosophie de S.
Augustin, ii. 92-100.

editor's preface. XV

problems which are not peculiar to any one century. As we
read these animated discussions,

" The fourteen centuries fall away

Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given.

From sea or earth comes no reply ;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. "

It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be
desired : there are passages which can possess an interest
only to the antiquarian ; there are others with nothing to
redeem them but the glow of their eloquence; there are
many repetitions ; there is an occasional use of arguments
" plus ingenieux que solides," as M. Saisset says. Augustine's
great admirer, Erasmus, does not scruple to call liim a writer
" obscur^e subtilitatis et parum amoenae prolixitatis :" ^ but
'' the toil of penetrating the apparent obscurities will be re-
warded by finding a real wealth of insight and enhghtenment."
Some who have read the opening chapters of the City of God,
may have considered it would be a waste of time to proceed ;
but no one, we are persuaded, ever regretted reading it all.
The book has its faults ; but it effectually introduces us to
the most influential of theologians, and the greatest popular
teacher ; to a genius that cannot nod for many lines together ;
to a reasoner whose dialectic is more formidable, more keen
and sifting, than that of Socrates or Aquinas ; to a saint whose
ardent and genuine devotional feeling bursts up through the
severest argumentation ; to a man whose kindliness and wit,
universal sympathies and breadth of intelligence, lend piquancy
and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.

The propriety of publisliing a translation of. so choice a
specimen of ancient literature needs no defence. As Pou-
joulat very sensibly remarks, there are not a great many men
now-a-days who will read a work in Latin of twenty-two
books. Perhaps there are fewer still who ought to do so.
With our busy neighbours in Prance, this work has been a
1 Erasmi Epistolce xx. 2.

XVI EDITORS PREFACE.

prime favourite for 400 years. There may be said to be
eight independent translations of it into the French tongue,
though some of these are in ^m/-^ merely revisions. One of
these translations has gone through as many as four editions.
The most recent is that which forms part of tlie Nisard series ;
but the best, so far as we have seen, is tliat of the accomplislied
Professor of Pliilosophy in tlie College of France, Emile Saisset.
This translation is indeed all tliat can be desired : here and
tliere an omission occurs, and about one or two renderings a
difference of opinion may exist ; but the exceeding felicity
and spirit of the whole sliow it to have been a labour of
love, the fond liomage of a disciple proud of his master. The
preface of M. Saisset is one of tlie most valuable contributions
ever made to the understanding of Augustine's philosophy.*

Of English translations there has been an unaccountable
poverty. Only one exists,^ and this so exceptionally bad, so
unlike the racy translations of the seventeenth century in
general, so inaccurate, and so frequently unintelligible, that
it is not impossible it may have done something towards
giving the English public a distaste for the book itself That
the present translation also might be improved, we know ;
that many men were fitter for the task, on the score of
scholarship, we are very sensible ; but that any one would
have executed it with intenser aff'ection and veneration for
the author, we are not prepared to admit. A few notes have
been added where it appeared to be necessary. Some are
ori^nnal, some from the Benedictine Auf(ustine, and the rest
from the elaborate commentary of Vives.^

The Editor.

Gla.soow, 1871.

^ A large part of it has been translated in Saisset's Panthei^n (Clark, E*lin.).

' By J. H., published in 1610, and again in 1G20, with Vivos' commentary.

3 As the letters of Vives are not in every library, we give his comico-pathetic
account of the result of his Augustinian labours on his health : " E.\ quo
Augustinum perfeci, nunquam valui ex sententia ; ])roxima vero hebdomatle
et hac, fracto cor])ore cuncto, et nervis lassitudine quadam et debilitate dejectis,
in caput decern turres incumberc mihi videntur incidendo pondere, ac mole
intolerabili ; isti sunt fructus sludioiiim, et mcrccs ])ukhcrrimi laboris ; quid
labor et benefacta juvant ? "

THE CITY OF GOD.

BOOK FIRST.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE CENSUSES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE CALAMITIES OF THE
WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE
GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE, WHICH. THEN, AS
ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES
THE SHAMELESSNESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT
THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE SOLDIERS,

PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING
THIS WORK.

THE glorious city of God is my theme in this work, ^Yhich
you, my dearest son Marcellinus/ suggested, and which
is due to you by my promise. I have undertaken its defence
against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of
this city, — a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it
still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns
as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell
in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with
patience waits for, expecting until " righteousness shall return
unto judgment," ^ and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence,
final victory and perfect peace. A great work this, and an
arduous ; but God is my helper. For I am aware what
ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the
virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human
arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities
that totter on this shifting scene. For the King and Founder

^ See the Editor's Preface.

'-* Ps. xciv. 15, rendered otherwise in Eng, ver.

VOL. I. A .

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

of this city of wliicli we speak, has in Scripture uttered to
His people a dictum of tlie divine law in these words : " God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humhle." ^ But
this, which is God's prerogative, the inflated ambition of a
proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered
among its attributes, to

"Sliow pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride." *

And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken
requires, and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the
earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is
itself ruled by its lust of rule.

1. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ, whom the barbarians for ChrisCs
sake spared when they stormed the city.

For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom
I have to defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed,
being reclaimed from their ungodly error, have become suffi-
ciently creditable citizens of this city ; but many are so in-
flamed with hatred against it, and are so ungratefid to its
Eedeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they would
now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had they
not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy's
steel, that life in which they now boast themselves. Are not
those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians tlirough
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ ?
The reliquaries of the martyi's and the churches of the apostles
bear witness to this ; for in the sack of the city they were
open sanctuary for all who fled to them, whether Christian
or Pagan. To their very threshold the blood tliii-sty enemy
raged ; there his murderous fury o^vned a limit. Thither did
such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom
they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully disposed
might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those mur-
derers who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came
to these spots wliere that was forbidden which the licence of
war pennitted in every other place, their furious rage for
slaughter was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners
was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes who now reproach
* Jas. iv. 6 and 1 Pet v. 5. * Virgil, ^£ncid, vi. 851.

BOOK I.] THE BABBARIANS RESPECT CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 3

the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the ills that have
befallen their city ; but the preservation of their own life — a
boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ by
the barbarians — they attribute not to our Christ, but to their
own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right per-
ceptions, to attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by
their enemies, to that divine providence which is wont to
reform the depraved manners of men by chastisement, and
which exercises with similar afflictions the righteous and
praiseworthy, — either translating them, when they have passed
through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them still on
earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute it
to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the
custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and
spared them for Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually
shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially
dedicated to Christ's name, and of which the very largest
were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be
given to the expansive compassion which desired that a large
multitude might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to
give God thanks, and with sincere confession flee for refuge to
His name, that so they may escape the punishment of eternal
fire — they who with lying lips took upon them this name,
that they might escape the punishment of present destruction.
For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insult-
ing the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not
have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pre-
tended that they themselves were Christ's servants. Yet now,
in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the
risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely
oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected
themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief
life.

2. That it is quite contrary to the usage of war, that the victors should spare
the vanquished for the sake of their gods.

There are histories of numberless wars, both before the
building of Eome and since its rise, and the extension of its
dominion : let these be read, and let one instance be cited in
which, when a city had been taken by foreigners, the victors

THE CITY OF GOD. [eOOK I.

spared those wlio were found to have fled for sanctuary to the
temples of their gods ;^ or one instance in which a barbarian
general gave orders that none should be put to the sword who
had been found in this or that temple. Did not -^neas see

** Dying Priam at the shrine,
Staining the hearth he made divine ? " *

Did not Diomede and Ulysses

" Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,
Her fateful image from your fane.
Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore
The virgin coronal she wore ? "^

Neither is that true which follows, that

** Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,
And Greece grew weak."*

For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and
sword ; after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars.
Neither did Troy perish because it lost ^linerva. For what
had Minerva herself first lost, that she should perish ? Her
guards perhaps ? No doubt ; just her guards. For as soon
as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact,
the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by
the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and
the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders ?

3. That the Romans did not sJioio their usual sagacity when they trusted
that they would be hencjited by the <jods who had been unable to defend
Troy.

And these be the gods to whose protecting care the
Eomans were delighted to entrust their city ! 0 too, too
piteous mistake ! And they are enraged at us when we
speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged
at their own writers, they part with money to learn what
they say ; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are
reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of
other honours. There is VirgU, who is read by boys, in order
that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all

^ The Benedictines remind us that Alexander and Xenophon, at least on some
occasions, did so.

' Virgil, AJncid, ii. 501-2. The renderings of Virgil are from Conington.
» Ibid. ii. IGO. * Ibid.

BOOK I.] HELPLESSNESS OF THE GODS OF ROME. 5

poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily
be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace,

** The fresh cask long keeps its first tang." ^

Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to
the Trojans, and stirring up iEolus, the king of the winds,
against them in the words,

** A race I hate now ploughs the sea.
Transporting Troy to Italy,
And home-gods conquered " '^ . . .

And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of
Eome to these conquered gods ? But it will be said, this was
only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not
know what she was saying. What, then, says iEneas himself,
— -^neas who is so often designated "pious?" Does he not say,

** Lo ! Panthus, 'scaped from death by flight,
Priest of Apollo on the height,
His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands ? " ^

Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call
"conquered") were rather entrusted to ^neas than he to
them, when it is said to him,

" The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns ? " ^

If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and
were conquered, and that when conquered they could not
escape except under the protection of a man, what madness
is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely entrusted to these
guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost
them ! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and
champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities,
but evil omens ? ^ Would it not be wiser to believe, not that
Eome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had
not they first perished, but rather that they would have
perished long since had not Eome preserved them as long as
she could ? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what
a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished
under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished

1 Horace, Ep. I. ii. 69. « ^neid, i. 71. 3 ma, ii. 319. 4 ma. 293.
^ iSTon uuniiua bona, sed omina mala.

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

because tliey had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the
only cause of their perishing was that they chose for tlieir
protectors gods condemned to perish ? The poets, therefore,
when they composed and sang these things about the con-
quered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered,
as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This,
however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another
and more fitting place. IMeanwhile I will briefly, and to the
best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these
ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the cala-
mities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their
own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared
them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the
trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence,
they use against His name those very lips wherewith they
falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be
spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His
sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues
that they might be safe and protected ; but no sooner do they
emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues
to hurl against Him curses full of hate.

4. Of the asylum of Juno in Troy, wJdch saved no one from the Greeks; and of
the churches of the apostles, ichkh protected from the barbarians all who
fled to them.

Troy itself, tlie mother of the Pioman people, was not able,
as I have said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places
of their gods from the fire and sword of the Greeks, though
the Greeks worshipped the same gods. Not only so, but

*' Phccnix and Ulysses fell
In the void courts by Juno's cell

Were set tlio spoil to keep ;
Sn.itchoil from the burning shrines away,
There llnnn's nii^'lity treasure lay,
liicli altArs, bowls of massy gold,
And captive raiment, ruddy rolled

In one promiscuous heap ;
"While boys anil matrons, wild with fear.
In long array were stamling mar." ^

In other words, the i)lace consecrated to so great a goddess

BOOK l] THE ASYLUM OF JUNO IN TROY. 7

was cliosen, not that from it none might be led out a captive,
but that in it all the captives might be immured. Compare
now this " asylum " — the asylum not of an ordinary god, not
of one of the rank and file of gods, but of Jove's o^vn sister
and wife, the queen of all the gods — with the churches built
in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils
rescued from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods,
not that they might be restored to the vanquished, but divided
among the victors ; while into these was carried back, with the
most religious observance and respect, everything which be-
longed to them, even though found elsewhere. There liberty
was lost; here preserved. There bondage was strict; here
strictly excluded. Into that temple men were driven to be-
come the chattels of their enemies, now lording it over them ;
into these churches men were led by their relenting foes, that
they might be at liberty. In fine, the gentle ^ Greeks appro-
priated that temple of Juno to the purposes of their own
avarice and pride ; while these churches of Christ were chosen
even by the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for humility
and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that
victory of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they
worshipped in common with the Trojans, and did not dare to
put to the sword or make captive the wretched and vanquished
Trojans who fled thither ; and perhaps Virgil, in the manner
of poets, has depicted what never really happened ? But there
is no question that he depicted the usual custom of an enemy
when sacking a city.

5. Caesar's statement regarding the universal custom oj an enemy when
sacking a city.

Even Csesar himself gives us positive testimony regarding
this custom ; for, in his deliverance in the senate about the
conspirators, he says (as Sallust, a historian of distinguished
veracity, writes ^) " that virgins and boys are violated, children
torn from the embrace of their parents, matrons subjected to

1 Tlioiigli ** levis " was the word usually employed to signify the inconstancy
of the Greelcs, it is evidently here used, in opposition to "immanis " of the follow-
ing clause, to indicate that the Greeks were more civilised than the barbarians,
and not relentless, but, as we say, easily moved.

2 De Conj. Cat. c. 51.

8 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

whatever should be the pleasure of the conquerors, temples
and houses plundered, slaughter and burning rife ; in fine, all
things filled with arms, corpses, blood, and wailing." If he
had not mentioned temples here, we might suppose that
enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of the gods.
And tlie Eoman temples were in danger of these disasters,
not from foreign foes, but from Catiline and liis associates,
the most noble senators and citizens of Piome. But these,
it may be said, were abandoned men, and the parricides of
their fatherland.

G. Tltat not even the Homans, lohen they took cities, spared the conquered
in their temples.

Why, then, need our argument take note of the many
nations who have waged wars with one another, and have
nowhere spared the conquered in the temples of their gods ?
Let us look at the practice of the Eomans themselves : let us,
I say, recall and review the Eomans, whose chief praise it has
been " to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud," and
that they preferred " rather to forgive than to revenge an in-
jury;"* and among so many and great cities which they have
stormed, taken, and overthrown for the extension of their
dominion, let us be told what temples they were accustomed
to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or
have they reaUy done this, and has the fact been suppressed
by the historians of these events ? Is it to be believed,
that men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points
they could praise, would omit those which, in their o^\^l
estimation, are the most signal proofs of piety ? Marcus
Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most
splendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its
coming ruin, and to have shed liis own tears over it
before he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve
the chastity even of his enemy. For before he gave orders
for the storming of the city, he issued an edict forbidding the
violation of any free person. Yet the city was sacked accord-
ing to the custom of war ; nor do we anywhere read, that even
by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that
no one should be injured who had lied to this or that temple.

* Sallust, Cat. Conj. ix.

BOOK I.] CUSTOM OF WAR IN SACKING CITIES. 9

And this certainly would by no means have been omitted,
when neither his weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity
could be passed in silence. Fabius, the conqueror of the city
of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining from making booty of
the images. For when his secretary proposed the question to
him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which
had been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation
under a joke. For he asked of what sort they were ; and when
they reported to him that there were not only many large
images, but some of them armed, " Oh," says he, " let us leave
with the Tarentines their angry gods." Seeing, then, that the
writers of Eoman history could not pass in silence, neither the
weeping of the one general nor the laughing of the other,
neither the chaste pity of the one nor the facetious modera-
tion of the other, on what occasion would it be omitted, if, for
the honour of any of their enemy's gods, they had shown this
particular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or
captivity was prohibited ?

7. That the cruelties which occurred in the sach of Rome were in accordance
with the custom of war, whereas the acts of clemency resulted Jrom the
influence of Christ's name.

All the spoiling, then, which Eome was exposed to in the
recent calamity — all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and
misery — was the result of the custom of war. But what was
novel, was that savage barbarians showed themselves in so
gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set
apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom
quarter was given, and that in them none were slain, from
them none forcibly dragged ; that into them many were led
by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from
them none were led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever
does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ,
and to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this,
and gives no praise, is ungrateful ; whoever hinders any one
from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent man to
impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and
bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tem-
pered by Him who so long before said by His prophet, " I

10 THE CITY OF GOD. [bOOK I.

will visit tlieir transgression with the rod, and their iniquities
with stripes ; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly
take from them." ^

8. Of the advantages and disadvantages which often indiscriminately accrue to
good and wicked men.

Will some one say, "Wliy, then, was this divine compassion
extended even to the ungodly and ungrateful ? Wiy, but be-
cause it was the mercy of Him who daily " maketh His sun to
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust." ^ For though some of these men, taking
thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform, some,
as the apostle says, " despising the riches of His goodness and
long-suffering, after their hardness and impenitent heart, trea-
sure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render
to every man according to his deeds :" ^ nevertheless does the
patience of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as
the scourge of God educates the good to patience. And so,
too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that it may
cherish them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked to
punish them. To the divine providence it has seemed good to
prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things,
which the unrighteous shall not enjoy ; and for the wicked
evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But
as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed
that these should be common to both ; that we might not too
eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally
to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which
even good men often suffer.

There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served
both by those events which we caU adverse and those called
prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the
good things of time, nor broken by its ills ; but the wicked
man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels
himself punished by its unhappiness.'* Yet often, even in the

I Ts. Ixxxix. 32. » Mutt. v. 45. 3 Rom. ii. 4.

* So Cyprian {Contra Demetrianum) says, '• Po-nain de adversis muudi ille
scntit, cui et Icctitia ct gloria oninis in mundo est."

BOOK I.] WHY GOOD AND BAD ^lEN SUFFER ALIKE. 1 1

present distribution of temporal things, docs God plainly evince
His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with
manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for
the final judgment ; on the other hand, if no sin received now
a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there
is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things of
this life : if God did not by a very visible liberality confer
these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should
say that these good things were not at His disposal ; and if
He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that
such were the only rewards of His service ; and such a service
would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous.
Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must
not suppose that there is no difference between the men them-
selves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer.
For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an
unlikeness in the sufferers ; and though exposed to the same
anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the
same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke ; and
under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain
is cleansed ; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though
squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same
violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but
damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that
in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme,
while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does
it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man
suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud
exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odour.

9. Of the reasons for administering correction to had and good together.

What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous
period, which would not profit every one who duly and faith-
fully considered the following circumstances ? First of all, tliey
must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God
to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be
far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet
they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults
as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For

1 2 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points
to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enor-
mity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abomin-
able profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so
much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account.
But not to mention this, where can we readily find a man who
holds in fit and just estimation those persons on account of
whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniqui-
ties and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions
threatened ? Where is the man who lives with them in the
style in which it becomes us to live with them ? For often
we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and
admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chid-
ing them, either because we shrink from the labour or are
ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friend-
ships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement,
or injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous
disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from
losing. So that, although the conduct of wicked men is dis-
tasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with them
into that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons,
yet, because they spare their damnable sins through fear, there-
fore, even though their own sins be slight and venial, they are
justly scourged with the wicked in this world, though in eter-
nity they quite escape punishment. Justly, when God afflicts
them in common with the wicked, do they find this life bitter,
through love of whose sweetness they declined to be bitter to
these sinners.

If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those
who are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable
opportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by
his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened
from endeavouring to lead a good and pious life, and may be
driven from the faith ; this man's omission seems to be occa-
sioned not by covctousness, but by a charitable consideration.
But what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves revolt
from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another
fashion, yet spare those faults in other men whicli tliey ouglit
to reprehend and wean them from ; and spare tliem because

BOOK I.] CONFORMITY OF CHRISTIANS TO THE UNGODLY. 13

they fear to give offence, lest tliey should injure their interests
in those things which good men may innocently and legiti-
mately use, — though they use them more greedily than becomes
persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope
of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren,
who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have
them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle
addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how
they should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the
husbands with their wives, the children with their parents,
and parents with their children, and servants with their masters,
and masters with their servants, — not only do these weaker
brethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and
temporal things on account of which they dare not offend men
whose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them ; but
those also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in
the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment,
do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and
abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear
their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them
to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like
iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet
those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission
of, they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they
might by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain
from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect,
their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed ;
not because they see that their preservation and good name
are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need
their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the
flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the
people, and the pain or death of the body ; tliat is to say,
their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of
love.

Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason
why the good are chastised along with the wicked, when God
is pleased to visit with temporal punishments the profligate
manners of a community. They are punished together, not
because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because

14 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them,
love this present life ; while they ought to hold it cheap, that
the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example,
might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the
companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should
be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long
as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come
to a better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to
fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, " lie
is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at
the watclunan's hand." ^ For watchmen or overseers of the
people are appointed in churches, that they may unsparingly
rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of,
who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of
those with whom the relationships of this life bring him into
contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks
them, fearing to give offence, and lose such worldly blessings
as may legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly
grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good
are afflicted with temporal calamities — the reason which Job's
case exemplifies : that the human spirit may be proved, and
that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust,
and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.^

10. That the saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods.

These are the considerations which one must keep in view,
that he may answer the question whether any evil happens to
the faithful and godly wliich cannot be turned to profit. Or
shall we say tliat the question is needless, and tliat the apostle
is vapouring when he says, " We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God ?" ^

They lost all they had. Their faith ? Their godliness ?
The possessions of the hidden man of the heart, which in tlie
sight of God arc of great price ?* Did they lose these ? For
these are the wealth of Christians, to wliom the wealthy apostle

* Ezck. xxxiii. 6.

* Compare with this chapter the first homily of Chrysostom to the people of
Antioch.

3 liom. viii. 28. * 1 Tet. iii. 4.

BOOK I.] WHAT CHRISTIANS LOST IN THE FALL OF ROME. 15

said, " Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought
nothing into tliis world, and it is certain we can carry nothing
out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith con-
tent. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a
snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown
men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is
the root of all evil ; which, while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves tlirough with
many sorrows." ^

They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Eome,
if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by
the apostle, who himself was poor without, but rich within, —
that is to say, if they used the world as not using it, — could
say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome :
" Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I
return thither : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ;
as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass : blessed be the
name of the Lord."^ Like a good servant, Job counted the
will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to which
his soul was enriched ; nor did it grieve him to lose, while
yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his
death. But as to those feebler spirits who, though they
cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet
cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they
have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much
they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their
own making; in the words of the apostle quoted above,
" they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
For it was well that they who had so long despised these
verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience.
For when the apostle says, " They that will be rich fall into
temptation," and so on, what he blames in riches is not the
possession of them, but the desire of them. For elsewhere he
says, " Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be
not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the
living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that
they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to dis-
tribute, willing to communicate ; laying up in store for them-

1 1 Tim. vi. 6-10. ^ Job i. 21.

16 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK T.

selves a good foundation against tlie time to come, that they
may lay hold on eternal life/'^ They who were making such
a use of their property have "been consoled for light losses by
great gains, and have had more pleasure in those possessions
which they have securely laid past, by freely giving them
away, than grief in those wliich they entirely lost by an
anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could
perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to carry
away from earth. Our Lord's injunction runs, " Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; but lay
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also."^ And they who have listened to this injunction have
proved in the time of tribulation how well they were advised
in not despising this most trustworthy teacher, and most
faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many
were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the
enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded
was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had
fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can pos-
sibly reach ! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola,^ who volun-
tarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though
abundantly rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola,
and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he afterwards
told me, " 0 Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver,
for where all my treasure is Thou knowest." For all his
treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it
by Him who had also foretold that these calamities would
happen in the world. Consequently those persons who obeyed
their Lord when lie warned them where and how to lay up
treasure, did not lose even their earthly possessions in the
invasion of the barbarians; while those who are now repenting

» 1 Tim. vi. 17-10. 2M.,tt. vi. 19-21.

^ Piiulimi.s was a native of Bordeaux, and both by inheritance and niarriajje
acquired groat wealth, which, after liis conversion in liis thirty-sixth year, lie
distributed to the poor. He became bishop of Nola in a.d. 409, being then in
his fifty sixth year. Nola was taken by Alaric shortly after the sack of Rome.

BOOK I.] "WHY CHRISTIANS WERE TORTURED. 17

that tliey did not obey Him have learnt the right use of
earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have pre-
vented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.

But some good and Christian men have been put to the
torture, that they might be forced to deliver up their goods to
the enemy. They could indeed neither deliver nor lose that
good which made themselves good. If, however, they pre-
ferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity,
then I say they were not good men. Eather they should
have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the
sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for
Christ's sake ; that they might be taught to love Him rather
who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and
not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether
they preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the truth.
Tor under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him,
no one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So
that possibly the torture which taught them that they should
set their affections on a possession they could not lose, was
more useful than those possessions which, without any useful
fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious owners.
But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had
no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they
said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for
wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation ;
and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual pos-
session alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such
excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any
hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living
in hopes of a better life, — I know not indeed if any such
person was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth ;
but if so, then certainly in confessing, when put to the ques-
tion, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it was
scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe
him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured
without receiving a heavenly reward.

Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian
low. But this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious
endurance of it. For those whom famine killed outright it

VOL. L B

1 8 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK T.

rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly disease would
have done ; and those who were only hunger -bitten were
tau'^ht to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.

11. Of the end of this life, whether it is material that it he long delayed.

But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and
were put to death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. "Well,
if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all
who are born into this life. Of this at least I am certain,
that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some
time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with
the shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to
be, the one is not better, the other worse — the one greater, the
other less.^ And of what consequence is it what kind of
death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not
forced to go through the same ordeal a second time ? And as
in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threat-
ened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain
which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better
to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all ? I am not
unaware of the poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose
rather to live long in fear of so many deaths, than to die once
and so escape them all ; but the weak and cowardly shrinking
of the flesh is one thing, and the well-considered and reason-
able persuasion of the soul quite another. That death is not
to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life ; for
death becomes evil only by the retribution which follows it.
They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to
inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death
will usher them. And since Christians are well aware that
the death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked
was far bettor than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple
and fine linen, what harm could these terrific deaths do to
the dead who had lived well ?

• Muih of a Idixlri'd naturo niii^ht be patlionnl from tlie Stoics. Antoninus
Bays (ii. 14) : ** Though tliou shoulJest be going to live 3000 years, and as many
times 10,000 years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this
which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The
longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same."

BOOK I.] OF THE CHRISTIANS LEFT UXBURIED. 19

12. Of the burial of the dead : that the denial of it to Christians does them no

injury. '

Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as
then occurred, the bodies could not even be buried. But
godly confidence is not appalled by so ill-omened a circum-
stance ; for the faithful bear in mind that assurance has been
given that not a hair of their head shall perish, and that,
therefore, though they even be devoured by beasts, their
blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered. The Truth
would nowise have said, " Fear not them which kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul,"^ if anything whatever that
an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be detri-
mental to the future life. Or w^ill some one perhaps take so
absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the body
are not to be feared before death, and lest they kill the body,
but after death, lest they deprive it of burial ? If this be so,
then that is false which Christ says, "'Be not afraid of them
that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can
do ; "^ for it seems they can do great injury to the dead body.
Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can be thus false.
They who kill the body are said " to do something," because
the death-blow is felt, the body still having sensation ; but
after that, they have no more that they can do, for in the
slain body there is no sensation. And so there are indeed
many bodies of Christians lying unburied; but no one has
separated them from heaven, nor from that earth which is all
filled with the presence ol Him who knows whence He will
raise again what He created. It is said, indeed, in the Psalm :
" The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat
unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the
beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water
round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them."*
But this was said rather to exliibit the cruelty of those who
did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them.
To the eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet
" precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."^

* Augustine expresses himself more fully on this subject in his tract, De
cura pro mortuis gerenda.

2 Matt. X. 28. 3 Luke xiL 4. * Ps. Ixxix. 2, 3. ^ Ps. cxvi. 15.

20 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern
the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment
of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace
of the living than the comfort of the dead. If a costly burial
does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all,
may harm the godly. His crowd of domestics furnished the
purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man ;
but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral
which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels,
who did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him
aloft to Abraham's bosom.

The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the
city of God laugh at all this. But even their own philo-
sophers ^ have despised a careful burial ; and often whole
armies have fought and fallen for their earthly country wit]i-
out caring to inquire whether they would be left exposed on
the field of battle, or become the food of wild beasts. Of this
noble disregard of sepulture poetry has well said : " He who
has no tomb has the sky for his vault." ^ How much less
ouglit they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians,
to whom it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be
restored, and the body formed anew, all the members of it
being gathered not only from the earth, but from the most
secret recesses of any other of the elements in wliich the dead
bodies of men have lain hid !

13. Reasons for burying the bodies of the saints.

Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on tliis ac-
count to be despised and left unburied ; least of all the bodies
of the rigliteous and faitliful, wliich have been used by the
Holy Ghost as His organs and instruments for all good works.
For if the dress of a lather, or his ring, or anything he wore,
be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they
bore him, with how nmch more reason ought we to care for

^ Diofjonos espocially, and liis followors. Soo also Scnrca, Dr Tranq. c. 14,
and Epijit. 92 ; and in Cicero's Tusc Di^p. i. 43, tlie answer of Theodorus, the
Cyreniiin iiliilosopher, to Lysiniaclms, who tlireatened liini witli the cross :
"Threaten tliat to yonr courtiers ; it is of no consequence to Theodorus whether
lie rot in the earth or in tlie air."

2 Lucan, Pharsdlia, vii. SI 9, of those whom Caesar forbade to be buried after
the battle ol Pharsidia.

BOOK I.] OF THE CARE DUE TO DEAD BODIES. 21

the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely
and intimately than any clothing ! For the body is not an
extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature.
And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices
were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and
obsequies celebrated ;^ and they themselves, while yet alive,
gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on
occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some
favourite place.^ And Tobit, according to the angel's testi-
mony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by
burying the dead.^ Our Lord Himself, too, though He was
to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends to our
applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured
precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial.*
And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were
careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it
lovingly in costly cerements, and see to its burial.^ These
instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling ;
but they show that God's providence extends even to the
bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to
Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And we may
also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does
not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the
unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we
exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the
holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies,
they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense ; but of these we
need not here speak at large, what we have already said being
sufficient. But if the want of those things which are neces-
sary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though
painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and
virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their
souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can
the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary atten-
tions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already
reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed ! Consequently,
though in the sack of Eome and of other towns the dead

1 Gen. XXV. 9, xxxv. 29, etc. 2 Qgn. xlvii. 29, 1. 2L

3 Tob. xii. 12. 4 Matt. xxvi. 10-13. ^ John xix. 38.

22 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices,
this is neitlier the fault of the living, for they could not render
them ; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the
loss.

14. Of the captivity of the saints^ and that divine consolation never failed tJiem

therein.

But, say they, many Christians were even led away cap-
tive. This indeed were a most p)itiable fate, if they could be
led away to any place where they could not find their God.
But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great con-
solation. The three youths^ were captives; Daniel was a
captive ; so were other prophets : and God, the comforter, did
not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed His
own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous,
is yet human, — lie who did not abandon the prophet" in the
belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridi-
cule rather than credited by those with whom we are debat-
ing ; though they believe what they read in their own books,
tliat Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist,^ when he was
tlirown overboard, was received on a dolphin's back and carried
to land. But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is
far more incredible, — more incredible because more marvellous,
and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.

15. Of Regulujt, in whom we have an example of the voluntary endurance of

captivity for the sake of religion; which yet did not projit him, though he
teas a worshipper of the gods.

But among their own famous men they have a very noble
example of the voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience
to a religious scniple. !Marcus Attilius Ecgulus, a Bnman
general, was a prisoner in the hands of the Carthaginians.
But they, being more anxious to exchange their prisoners with
the Ptomans than to keep them, sent Picgulus as a special
envoy with thoir own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange,
but bound him first with an oath, that if he failed to ac-
complisli tlu'ir wish, he would return to Carthage. lie went,
and persuaded the senate to the o])posite course, because he

^ Dan. iii. 'Jonah.

' " Second to none," as ho is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells Lis
well-known story {Clio. 23, 24).

BOOK I.] ]\rAGNANIMITY OF REGULUS. 23

believed it was not for tlie advantage of the Eoman republic
to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus exerted
his influence, the Eomans did not compel him to return to the
enemy; but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed.
But the Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elabo-
rate, and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow
box, in which he was compelled to stand, and in which finely
sharpened nails were fixed all round about him, so that he
could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain ; and
so they killed him by depriving him of sleep.^ With justice,
indeed, do they applaud the virtue which rose superior to so
frightful a fate. However, the gods he swore by were those
who are now supposed to avenge the prohibition of their wor-
ship, by inflicting these present calamities on the human race.
But if these gods, who were worshipped specially in this
behalf, that they might confer happiness in this life, either
willed or permitted these punishments to be inflicted on one
who kept his oath to them, what more cruel punishment
could they in their anger have inflicted on a perjured person ?
But why may I not draw from my reasoning a double infer-
ence ? Eegulus certainly had such reverence for the gods,
that for his oath's sake he would neither remain in his own
land, nor go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned to his
bitterest enemies. If he thought that this course would be
advantageous with respect to this present life, he was certainly
much deceived, for it brought his life to a frightful termina-
tion. By his o^vn example, in fact, he taught that the gods
do not secure the temporal happiness of their worshippers ;
since he himself, who was devoted to their worship, was both
conquered in battle and taken prisoner, and then, because he
refused to act in violation of the oath he had sworn by them,
was tortured and put to death by a new, and hitherto unheard
of, and all too horrible kind of punishment. And on the sup-
position that the worshippers of the gods are rewarded by
felicity in the life to come, why, then, do they calmnniate
the influence of Christianity ? wdiy do they assert that this

^ Augustine here uses the words of Cicero ("vigilando peremerunt " ), who
refers to Regulus, in Pisonem, c. 19. Aulus Gellius, quoting Tubero and Tudi-
tanus (vi. 4), adds some further particulars regarding these tortures.

24 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

disaster has overtaken the city because it has ceased to wor-
ship its gods, since, worship them as assiduously as it may, it
may yet be as unfortunate as Regulus was ? Or will some
one carry so wonderful a blindness to the extent of wildly
attempting, in the face of the evident truth, to contend that
though one man might be unfortunate, though a worsliipper of
the gods, yet a whole city could not be so ? That is to say,
the power of their gods is better adapted to preserve multi-
tudes than individuals, — as if a multitude were not composed
of individuals.

But if they say that !M. Eegulus, even while a prisoner
and enduring these bodily torments, might yet enjoy the
blessedness of a virtuous soul,^ then let' them recognise that
true virtue by which a city also may be blessed. For the
blessedness of a community and of an individual flow from
the same source ; for a community is nothing else than a
harmonious collection of individuals. So that I am not con-
cerned meantime to discuss what kind of virtue Eegulus
possessed : enough, that by his very noble example they are
forced to own that the gods are to be worshipped not for the
sake of bodily comforts or external advantages ; for he pre-
ferred to lose all such things rather than offend the gods by
whom he had sworn. But what can we make of men who
glory in having such a citizen, but dread having a city like
him ? If they do not dread this, then let them acknowledge
that some such calamity as befell Eegulus may also befall a
community, though they be worshipping their gods as dili-
gently as he ; and let them no longer throw the blame of
their misfortunes on Christianity. But as our present con-
cern is with tliose Christians who were taken prisoners, let
those who take occasion from this calamity to revile our most
wholesome religion in a fashion not less imprudent than im-
pudent, consider this and liold their peace ; for if it was no
reproach to their gods that a most punctilious worshipper of
theirs should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be
deprived of liis native land without liope of finding another,
and fall into tlie hands of his enemies, and be put to death
by a long-drawn and exquisite torture, much less ought the
' As the Stoics generally would 0^11111.

BOOK I.] OF THE VIRGINS "WHO WERE VIOLATED. 26

Christian name to be charged with the captivity of those who
believe in its power, since they, in confident expectation of a
heavenly country, know that they are pilgrims even in their
own homes.

16. 0/the violation of the consecrated and other Christian virgins to which they
were subjected in captivity, and to which their own will gave no consent ;
and whether this contaminated their souls.

But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against
Christianity, when they aggravate the horror of captivity by
adding that not only wives and unmarried maidens, but even
consecrated virgins, were violated. But truly, with respect to
this, it is not Christian faith, nor piety, nor even the virtue
of chastity, which is hemmed into any difficulty : the only
difficulty is so to treat the subject as to satisfy at once
modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not be so
careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends.
Let this, therefore, in the first place, be laid down as an un-
assailable position, that the virtue which makes the life good
has its throne in the soul, and thence rules the members of
the body, which becomes holy in virtue of the holiness of the
will; and that while the will remains firm and unshaken,
nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the
body, is any fault of the person who suffers it, so long as he
cannot escape it without sin. But as not only pain may be
inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever
anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a
thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,
— shame, lest that act which could not be suffered without
some sensual pleasure, should be believed to have been com-
mitted also with some assent of the will.

17. Of suicide committed throiighfear of punishment or dishonour.

And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed them-
selves to avoid such disgrace, who that has any human feeling
would refuse to forgive them ? And as for those who would
not put an end to their lives, lest they might seem to escape
the crime of another by a sin of their own, he who lays this
to their charge as a great wickedness is himself not guiltless
of the fault of folly. For if it is not lawful to take the law

26 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

into our own hands, and slay even a guilty person, whose
death no public sentence has warranted, then certainly he
who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier of
his own death, as he was more innocent of that offence for
wliich he doomed himself to die. Do we justly execrate the
deed of Judas, and docs truth itself pronounce that by hang-
ing himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of
that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God's
mercy in his sorrow tliat wrought death, he left to himself no
place for a healing penitence ? How much more ought he to
abstain from laying violent hands on himself who has done
nothing worthy of such a punishment ! Tor Judas, when he
killed himself, killed a wicked man ; but he passed from this
life chargeable not only with the death of Clirist, but with
his own : for though he killed himself on account of his crime,
his killing himself was another crime. Why, then, should a
man who has done no ill do ill to himself, and by killing
himself kill tlie innocent to escape another's guilty act, and
perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that the sin of
another may not be perpetrated on him ?

18. Of the violence widcli may he done to the body by another's lust, while the
mind remains inviolate.

But is there a fear that even another's lust may pollute
the violated ? It will not pollute, if it be another's : if it
pollute, it is not another's, but is shared also by the polluted.
But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its com-
panion virtue the fortitude which will rather endure all ills
than consent to evil ; and since no one, however magnanimous
and pure, has always tlie disposal of his own body, but can
control only the consent and refusal of his will, what sane
man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly made
use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his
purity ? For if purity can be tlius destroyed, tlien assuredly
purity is no virtue of the soul ; nor can it bo numbered
among those good things by which tlie life is made good, but
among the good tilings of the body, in the same category as
strength, beauty, sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all
such good things as may be diminished witliout at all dimin-
ishing the goodness and rectitude of our life. But if purity

BOOK I.] VIRGINITY A PROPERTY OF THE SOUL. 27

be nothing better than these, why should the body be perilled
that it may be preserved ? If, on the other hand, it belongs
to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it
lost. Nay more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists
the uncleanness of carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and
therefore when this continence remains unsubdued, even the
sanctity of the body is preserved, because the will to use it
holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power
also.

For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the in-
tegrity of its members, nor in their exemption from all touch ;
for they are exposed to various accidents which do violence to
and wound them, and the surgeons who administer relief often
perform operations that sicken the spectator. A midwife,
suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally, or through
unskilfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while
endeavouring to ascertain it : I suppose no one is so foolish
as to believe that, by this destruction of the integrity of one
organ, the virgin has lost anything even of her bodily sanctity.
And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of purpose
which sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another's
lust makes no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is
preserved intact by one's own persistent continence. Suppose
a virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to
meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall
we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily
sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity
of soul which sanctifies the body ? Far be it from us to so
misapply words. Let us rather draw this conclusion, that while
the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is
violated, the sanctity of the body is not lost ; and that, in like
manner, the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of
the soul is violated, though the body itself remain intact.
And therefore a woman who has been violated by the sin of
another, and without any consent of her own, has no cause to
put herself to death ; much less has she cause to commit
suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in that case she
commits certain homicide to prevent a crime which is uncer-
tain as yet, and not her own.

28 THE CITY OF GOD. [p.OOK T.

19. 0/ Lucretia, wfio put an end to her life because of the outrage done her.

This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid.
We maintain that when a woman is violated wliile her soul
admits no consent to the iniquity, but remains inviolably
chaste, the sin is not hers, but his who violates her. But do
they against whom we have to defend not only the souls, but
the sacred bodies too of these outraged Christian captives, — do
they, perhaps, dare to dispute our position ? But all know how
loudly they extol the purity of Lucretia, that noble matron
of ancient Rome. When King Tarquin's son had violated
her body, she made known the wickedness of this young
profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kins-
man, men of high rank and full of courage, and bound them
by an oath to avenge it. Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear
the shame, she put an end to her life. AVhat shall we call
her ? An adulteress, or chaste ? There is no question which
she was. Kot more happily than truly did a declaimer say of
tliis sad occurrence : " Here was a marvel : there were two,
and only one committed adultery." Most forcibly and truly
spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the union of the two
bodies the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the
other, and giving heed not to the contact of the bodily mem-
bers, but to the wide diversity of their souls, says : " There
were two, but the adultery was committed only by one."

But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime
bears the heavier punishment of the two ? For the adulterer
was only banished along with his father; she suflered the
extreme penalty. If tliat was not impurity by which she
was unwillinc,dy ravished, then this is not justice by which
she, being cliaste, is punished. To you I appeal, ye laws
and judges of Borne. Even after the perpetration of great
enormities, you do not suffer the criminal to be slain untried.
If, then, one were to bring to your bar this case, and were to
prove to you that a woman not only untried, but chaste and
innocent, had been killed, would you not visit the murderer
with punishment proportionably severe ? This crime was
committed l)y Lucretia; that Lucretia so celebrated and
lauded slew tlie innocent, cliaste, outraged Lucretia. Pro-
nounce sentence. But if you cannot, because there does not

BOOK I.] LUCRETIA. 29

compear any one whom you can punish, why do you extol
with such unmeasured laudation her who slew an innocent
and chaste woman ? Assuredly you will find it impossible
to defend her before the judges of the realms below, if they be
such as your poets are fond of representing them ; for she is
among those

" Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,
And all for loathing of the day,
In madness threw their lives away."

And if she with the others wishes to return,

" Fate bars the way : around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,
And bind with ninefold chain." ^

Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself con-
scious of guilt, not of innocence ? She herself alone knows
her reason; but what if she was betrayed by the pleasure
of the act, and gave some consent to Sextus, though so vio-
lently abusing her, and then was so affected with remorse,
that she thought death alone could expiate her sin ? Even
though this were the case, she ought still to have held her
hand from suicide, if she could with her false gods have
accomplished a fruitful repentance. However, if such were
the state of the case, and if it were false that there were two,
but one only committed adultery ; if the truth were that both
were involved in it, one by open assault, the other by secret
consent, then she did not kill an innocent woman ; and there-
fore her erudite defenders may maintain that she is not
among that class of the dwellers below " who guiltless sent
themselves to doom." But this case of Lucretia is in such a
dilemma, that if you extenuate the homicide, you confirm the
adultery : if you acquit her of adultery, you make the charge
of homicide heavier ; and there is no way out of the dilemma,
wdien one asks, If she was adulterous, why praise her ? if
chaste, why slay her ?

Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are
unable to comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore
insult over our outraged Christian women, it is enough that in
the instance of this noble Koman matron it was said in her

1 Virgil, JSnekl, vi. 434.

30 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK L

praise, "There were two, but the adultery was the crime
of only one." For Lucretia was confidently believed to be
superior to the contamination of any consenting thought to
the adultery. And accordingly, since she killed herself for
being subjected to an outrage in which she had no guilty
part, it is obvious that tliis act of liers was prompted not by
the love of purity, but by the overwhelming burden of her
sliame. She was ashamed that so foul a crime had been per-
petrated upon her, though without her abetting ; and this
matron, with the Eoman love of glory in her veins, was
seized with a proud dread that, if she continued to live, it
would be supposed she willingly did not resent the wrong
that had been done her. She could not exhibit to men her
conscience, but she judged that her self-inflicted punishment
would testify her state of mind ; and she burned with shame
at the thought that her patient endurance of the foul affront
tliat another liad done her, should be construed into complicity
with him. Not such was the decision of the Christian women
who suffered as she did, and yet survive. They declined to
avenge upon themselves the guilt of otliers, and so add crimes
of their own to those crimes in which they had no share.
For this they would have done had their shame driven them
to homicide, as tlie lust of their enemies had driven them
to adultery. Within their own souls, in the witness of
their own conscience, they enjoy the glory of chastity. In
the sight of God, too, they are esteemed pure, and this con-
tents them ; they ask no more : it suffices them to have
opportunity of doing good, and they decline to evade the
distress of human suspicion, lest they thereby deviate from
the divine law.

20. Tliat Christians have no anthnrity for committing suicide in any
circumstances whatever.

It is not without significance, that in no passage of the
holy canonical books there can be found either divine precept
or permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake
of entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning,
or ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law,
rightly intcr]^)reted, even ])rohibits suicide, where it says,
" Thou shalt not kill" This is proved specially by tlie

BOOK I.] IS SUICIDE JUSTIFIABLE 1 31

omission of the words " thy neighbour/' which are inserted
when false witness is forbidden : " Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour." Nor yet should any one on
this account suppose he has not broken this commandment if
he has borne false witness only against himself. For the love
of our neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is
written, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." If, then,
he who makes false statements about himself is not less guilty
of bearing false witness than if he had made them to the injury
of his neighbour ; although in the commandment prohibiting
false witness only his neighbour is mentioned, and persons
taking no pains to understand it might suppose that a man
was allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt ; how much
greater reason have we to understand that a man may not
kill himself, since in the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill,"
there is no limitation added nor any exception made in favour
of any one, and least of all in favour of him on whom the
command is laid ! And so some attempt to extend this com-
mand even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life
from any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the
plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth ?
For though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they
also are said to live, and consequently they can die ; and there-
fore, if violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the
apostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things as these,
says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it
die ; " and in the Psalm it is said, " He killed their vines with
hail." Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this com-
mandment, " Thou shalt not kill," to pull a flower ? Are we
thus insanely to countenance the foolish error of the Mani-
chseans ? Putting aside, then, these ravings, if, when we say,
Thou shalt not kill, we do not understand this of the plants,
since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals
that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from
us by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just
appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep
alive for our own uses ; if so, then it remains that we under-
stand that commandment simply of man. The commandment
is, " Thou shalt not kill man ; " therefore neither another nor

32 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK L

yourself, for lie ^vllO kills liiinself still kills nothing else than
man.

21. 0/ the cases in which we may put men to death without incurring the guilt

of murder.

However, there are some exceptions made by the divine
authority to its own law, that men may not be put to death.
These exceptions are of two kinds, being justified either by a
general law, or by a special commission granted for a time to
some individual. And in this latter case, he to whom autho-
rity is delegated, and who is but the sword in the hand of him
who uses it, is not himself responsible for the death he deals.
And, accordingly, they who have waged w^ar in obedience to
the divine command, or in conformity with His laws have
represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom
of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked
men ; such persons have by no means violated the command-
ment, " Thou shalt not kill." Abraham indeed was not merely
deemed guiltless of cruelty, but was even applauded for his
piety, because he was ready to slay his son in obedience to
God, not to his own passion. And it is reasonably enough
made a question, whether we are to esteem it to have been in
compliance with a command of God that Jephthah killed his
daughter, because she met him when he had vowed that he
would sacrifice to God whatever first met him as he returned
victorious from battle. Samson, too, who drew down the
house on himself and his foes together, is justified only on
this ground, that the Spirit who wrought wonders by him
had given him secret instructions to do this. AVith the ex-
ception, then, of these two classes of cases, which are justified
either by a just law that applies generally, or by a special in-
timation from God Himself, the fountain of all justice, whoever
kills a man, cither himself or another, is implicated in the
guilt of murder.

22, That suicide can never be prompted by maffnanimitt/.

But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are
perhiips to be admired for their greatness of soul, though they
cannot be applauded for the soundness of their judgment.
However, if you look at the matter more closely, you will
scarcely call it greatness of soul, which prompts a man to kill

BOOK L] suicide COWARDLY. 33

himself rather than bear up against some hardships of fortune,
or sins in which he is not implicated. Is it not rather proof
of a feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains of
bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of the vulgar ? And
is not that to be pronounced the greater mind, which rather
faces than flees the ills of life, and which, in comparison of
the light and purity of conscience, holds in small esteem the
judgment of men, and specially of the vulgar, which is frequently
involved in a mist of error ? And, therefore, if suicide is to be
esteemed a magnanimous act, none can take higher rank for
magnanimity than that Cleombrotus, who (as the story goes),
when he had read Plato's book in which he treats of the
immortality of the soul, threw himself from a wall, and so
passed from this life to that which he believed to be better.
For he was not hard pressed by calamity, nor by any accusa-
tion, false or true, which he could not very well have lived
down : there was, in short, no motive but only magnanimity
urging him to seek death, and break away from the sweet
detention of this life. And yet that this was a magnanimous
rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself, whom he had
read, would have told him ; for he would certainly have been
forward to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not
the same bright intellect which saw that the soul was im-
mortal, discerned also that to seek immortality by suicide was
to be prohibited rather than encouraged.

Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent
an enemy doing so. But w^e are not inquiring whether it has
been done, but whether it oudit to have been done. Sound
judgment is to be preferred even to examples, and indeed
examples harmonize with the voice of reason ; but not all
examples, but those only which are distinguished by their
piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation. For
suicide we cannot cite the example of patriarchs, prophets, or
apostles ; though our Lord Jesus Christ, when He admonished
them to flee from city to city if they were persecuted, might
very well have taken that occasion to advise them to lay
violent hands on themselves, and so escape their persecutors.
But seeing He did not do this, nor proposed this mode of
departing this life, though He were addressing His own

VOL. L c

34 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

friends for whom He had promised to prepare everlasting
mansions, it is obvious that such examples as are produced
from the " nations that forget God," give no warrant of imita-
tion to tlie worshippers of the one true God.

23. ]Vhat we are to think of tJie example, of Cato, who slew himself because
unable to endure Ccesar^s victory.

Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said,
our advocates of suicide have some difficulty in finding any
other prescriptive example, unless it be that of Cato, who
killed himself at Utica. His example is appealed to, not
because he was the only man who did so, but because he was
so esteemed as a learned and excellent man, that it could
plausibly be maintained that what he did was and is a good
thing to do. But of this action of his, what can I say but
that his own friends, eidightened men as he, prudently dis-
suaded him, and therefore judged his act to be that of a feeble
rather than a strong spirit, and dictated not by honourable
feeling forestalling shame, but by weakness shrinking from
hardships ? Indeed, Cato condemns himself by the advice he
gave to his dearly loved son. For if it was a disgrace to live
under Caisar s rule, why did the father urge the son to this
disgrace, by encouraging him to trust absolutely to CaBsar's
generosity ? Why did he not persuade him to die along
with himself ? If Torquatus was applauded for putting
his son to death, when contrary to orders he had engaged,
and engaged successfully, with the enemy, why did con-
quered Cato spare his conquered son, though he did not spare
himself ? Was it more disgraceful to be a victor contrary to
orders, than to submit to a victor contrary to the received
ideas of honour ? Cato, then, cannot have deemed it to be
shameful to live under Caisar's rule ; fur had lie done so, the
father's sword would have delivered his son from this disgnice.
The truth is, that his son, whom he both hoped and desired
would be spared by Ca;sar, was not more loved by him than
Caisar was envied the glory of pardoning him (as indeed
Caesar liimsclf is reported to liave said ^) ; or if envy is too
strong a word, let us say he was ashamed that this glory should
be his.

» riutarch's Life 0/ Cato, 72.

BOOK I.] EXAMPLE OF REGULUS. 35

24. That in that virtue in tohich Begulus excels Cato, Christians are
pre-eminently distinguished.

Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the
saintly Job, who endured dreadful evils in his body rather
than deliver himself from all torment by self-inflicted death ;
or other saints, of whom it is recorded in our authoritative
and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and the oppres-
sion of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their
own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus
Eegulus. For Cato had never conquered Caesar ; and when
conquered by him, disdained to submit himself to him, and
that he might escape this submission put himself to death.
Eegulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Cartha-
ginians, and in command of the army of Eome had won for
the Eoman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail,
and which the enemy himself was constrained to admire ; yet
afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he pre-
ferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond
their reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the
Carthaginians, and constant in his love of the Eomans, he
neither deprived the one of his conquered body, nor the other
of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love of life that
prevented him from killing himself. This was plainly enough
indicated by his unhesitatingly returning, on account of his
promise and oath, to the same enemies whom he had more
grievously provoked by his words in the senate than even
by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt of life, and
preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies
might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand,
he could not more distinctly have declared how great a crime
he judged suicide to be. Among all their famous and remark-
able citizens, the Eomans have no better man to boast of than
this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he remained
a very poor man after winning such victories ; nor broken by
adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most miserable
end. But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, wdio had
but an earthly country to defend, and who, though they had
but false gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and care-
fully kept their oath to them; if these men, who by the custom

36 Tilt CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

and right of war put conquered enemies to the sword, yet
shrank from putting an end to their own lives even when
conquered by their enemies ; if, though they had no fear at
all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit
suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of
the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink
from this act, if in God's providence they have been for a
season delivered into the hands of their enemies to prove or
to correct them ! And, certainly, Christians subjected to this
humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High,
who for their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they
forget that they are bound by no laws of war, nor military
orders, to put even a conquered enemy to the sword ; and if
a man may not put to death the enemy who has sinned, or
may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to maintain
that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is
going to sin, against him ?

25. That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin.

But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the
body is subjected to the enemy's lust, the insidious pleasure
of sense may entice the soul to consent to the sin, and steps
must be taken to prevent so disastrous a result. And is not
suicide the proper mode of preventing not only the enemy's
sin, but the sin of the Christian so allured ? Xow, in the
lirst place, the soul which is led by God and His wisdom,
rather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never con-
sent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by another's lust.
And, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declares,
that suicide is a detestable and danmable wickedness, who is
such a fool as to say. Let us sin now, that we may obviate a
possible future sin ; let us now commit murder, lest we per-
haps afterwards sliould commit adultery ? If we are so con-
trolled by ini(piity that innocence is out of the question, and
we can at best but make a choice of sins, is not a future and
uncertiiin adultery preferable to a jn-esent and certain murder?
Is it not better to commit a wickedness which penitence may
heal, than a ciiiiu; wliicli loaves no place for healing contri-
tion ? I say tliijs fur tlie sake of those men or women who
fear they may be enticed into consenting to their violators

BOOK L] suicide OF VIRGINS FEAEING VIOLATION. 37

lust, and think they should lay violent hands on themselves,
and so prevent, not another's sin, but their own. But far be
it from the mind of a Christian confiding in God, and resting
in the hope of His aid ; far be it, I say, from such a mind
to yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh, how-
soever presented. And if that lustful disobedience, which
still dwells in our mortal members, follows its own law irre-
spective of our will, surely its motions in the body of one
who rebels acjainst them are as blameless as its motions in
the body of one who sleeps.

26. That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the saints are not to he
followed.

But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women
escaped those who menaced them with outrage, by casting
themselves into rivers which they knew would drown them ;
and having died in this manner, they are venerated in the
church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I do not pre-
sume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not
have been vouchsafed to the church some divine authority,
proved by trustworthy evidences, for so honouring their memory:
it may be that it is so. It may be they were not deceived by
human judgment, but prompted by divine wisdom, to their
act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case
with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates
by plain evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call
obedience criminal ? Who will accuse so religious a submis-
sion ? But then every man is not justified in sacrificing his
son to God, because Abraham was commendable in so doing.
The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the autho-
rity under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused
of murder by any law of his state ; nay, if he has not slain
him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of
despising the law. But if he has been acting on his own
authority, and at his own impulse, he has in this case
incurred the crime of sheddinGj human blood. And thus
he is punished for doing without orders the very thing he
is punished for neglecting to do when he has been ordered.
If the commands of a general make so great a difference, shall
the commands of God make none ? He, then, who knows it

38 THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK I.

is unlawful to kill himself, may nevertheless do so if he is
ordered by Ilim whose commands we may not neglect. Only
let him be very sure that the divine command has been
signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets
of conscience only in so far as these are disclosed to us, and
so far only do we judge : " Xo one knoweth the things of a
man, save the spirit of man which is in him."^ But this we
affirm, this w^e maintain, this we every way pronounce to be
right, that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death,
for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of
eternity ; that no man ought to do so on account of another
man's sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not
pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his owti ; that no man
ought to do so on account of his ow^n past sins, for he has all
the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by
repentance ; that no man should put an end to this life to
obtain that better life w^e look for after death, for those who
die by their own hand have no better life after death.

27. Whether voluntary death should he sought in order to avoid sin.

There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned
before, and which is thought a sound one, — namely, to prevent
one's falling into sin either through the blandishments of
pleasure or the violence of pain. If this reason w^ere a good
one, then we should be impelled to exhort men at once to
destroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the
laver of regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all
sin. Then is the time to escape all future sin, when all past
sin is blotted out. And if this escape be lawfully secured by
suicide, why not then specially ? Why does any baptized per-
son hold his hand from taking his own life ? Why does any
person who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose
himself to them, when he has power so eiisily to rid himself
of tliem all, and when it is written, " He who loveth danger
shall fall into it ?"'^ Why does he love, or at least face, so
many serious dangers, by remaining in this life from which
he may legitimately depart ? But is any one so blinded and
twisted in his moral nature, and so far astray from the truth,
' 1 Cor. iL 11. s Ecclus. iii. 27.

BOOK l] suicide UNJUSTIFIABLE. 39

as to tliink that, though a man ought to make away with him-
self for fear of being led into sin by the oppression of one
man, his master, he ought yet to live, and so expose himself
to the hourly temptations of this world, both to all those
evils which the oppression of one master involves, and to
numberless other miseries in which this life inevitably impli-
cates us ? What reason, then, is there for our consuming time
in those exhortations by wliich we seek to animate the bap-
tized, either to virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or
matrimonial fidelity, when we have so much more simple
and compendious a method of deliverance from sin, by per-
suading those who are fresh from baptism to put an end to
their lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well- conditioned ?
If any one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I
say not he is foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he
say to any man, " Kill yourself, lest to your small sins you
add a heinous sin, while you live under an unchaste master,
whose conduct is that of a barbarian ?" How can he say tliis,
if he cannot without wickedness say, " Kill yourself, now that
you are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into
similar or even aggravated sins, while you live in a world
which has such power to allure by its unclean pleasures, to
torment by its horrible cruelties, to overcome by its errors
and terrors ?" It is wicked to say this ; it is therefore wicked
to kill oneself. For if there could be any just cause of
suicide, this were so. And since not even this is so, there is
none.

28. By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to indulge his lust on live
bodies of continent Christians.

Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful ser-
vants of Christ, though your chastity was made the sport
of your enemies. You have a grand and true consolation, if
you maintain a good conscience, and know that you did not
consent to the sins of those who were permitted to commit
sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask why this
permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence of the
Creator and Governor of the world; and " unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out." ^ Nevertheless,

1 Rom. xi. 33.

40 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

faithfully interrogate your own souls, whetlier ye have not
been unduly pufl'ed up by your integrity, and continence, and
chastity ; and whether ye have not been so desirous of the
human praise that is accorded to these virtues, that ye have
envied some who possessed them. I, for my part, do not
know your hearts, and therefore I make no accusation ; I do
not even hear what your hearts answer when you question
them. And yet, if they answer that it is as I have supposed
it might be, do not marvel that you have lost that by which
you can win men's praise, and retain that which cannot be
exliibited to men. If you did not consent to sin, it was
because God added His aid to His grace that it might not
be lost, and because shame before men succeeded to human
glory that it might not be loved. But in both respects even
the fainthearted among you have a consolation, approved by
the one experience, chastened by the other ; justified by the
one, corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts, when
interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the
virtue of virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but,
condescending to those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling
in these gifts of God, and that they have never envied any
one the like excellences of sanctity and purity, but rose
superior to human applause, which is wont to be abundant in
proportion to the rarity of the virtue applauded, and rather
desired that their own number be increased, than that by the
smallness of their numbers each of them should be conspi-
cuous ; — even such faithful women, I say, must not complain
that permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to
outrage them ; nor must tliey allow themselves to believe that
God overlooked tlieir character when He permitted acts which
no one with impunity commits. For some most flagrant and
wicked desires are allowed free play at present by the secret
judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final
judgment. Moreover, it is possible tliat those Christian
women, who are unconscious of any undue pride on account
of their virtuous cliastity, whereby they sinlessly suftered the
violence of their captors, had yet some lurking infirmity which
niiglit have betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous
bearing, had they not been subjected to the humiliation that

BOOK I.] CONSOLATION OF VIOLATED VIRGINS. 41

befell them in the taking of the city. As, therefore, some
men were removed by death, that no wickedness might change
their disposition, so these women were outraged lest prosperity
should corrupt their modesty. Neither those women, then,
who were already puffed up by the circumstance that they
were still virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed
up had they not been exposed to the violence of the enemy,
lost their chastity, but rather gained humility : the former
were saved from pride already cherished, the latter from pride
that would shortly have grown upon them.

We must further notice that some of those sufferers may
have conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides
so long as the body is inviolate, and did not understand that
the purity both of the body and the soul rests on the sted-
fastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot
be forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error
they are probably now delivered. For when they reflect how
conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again
to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those
who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid ; and when they
consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is
chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that He could
never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by
them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself
had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them.

29. What the servants of Christ should say in reply to the unbelievers who cast in
their teeth that Chi'ist did not rescue themjrom the Jury of their enemies.

The whole family of God, most high and most true, has
therefore a consolation of its own, — a consolation which cannot
deceive, and which has in it a surer hope than the tottering
and falling affairs of earth can afford. They will not refuse
the discipline of this temporal life, in which they are schooled
for life eternal ; nor will they lament their experience of it,
for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who are not
detained by them, and its ills either prove or improve them.
As for those who insult over them in their trials, and when
ills befall them say, "Where is thy God?"^ we may ask them
where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for

1 Ps. xlii. 10.

42 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

the sake of avoiding wliich they worsliip tlieir gods, or main-
tain tliey ouglit to be ^vo^shipped ; for the family of Christ is
furnished with its reply : our God is ever}^vhere present,
wholly everywhere ; not confined to any place. lie can be
present unperceived, and be absent without moving ; when
He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfec-
tions or correct our imperfections ; and in return for our
patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us
an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should
deign to speak with you even about your own gods, much
less about" our God, who is "to be feared above all gods? For
all the gods of the nations are idols ; but the Lord made the
heavens. " ^

30. That those who complain of Christianity really desire to live without
restraint in shameful luxury.

If the famous Scipio Xasica were now alive, who was once
your pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate,
when, in the panic created by the Punic war, they sought for
the best citizen to entertain the Phrygian goddess, he would
curb this shamelessness of yours, though you would perhaps
scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man.
For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity,
unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious licence
unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life
without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster ? For
certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is
not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly,
that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and
piety ; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless
variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your
prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-
fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such
a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best
man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he re-
fused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Piome's rival ;
and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared
security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a
wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And

^ Ts. xcvi. 4, 5.

BOOK I.] SCIPIO'S FEAR OF PROSPERITY. 43

he was not mistaken : the event proved how wisely he had
spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Eoman
republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd
of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous
condition of things. First concord was weakened, and de-
stroyed by fierce and bloody seditions ; then followed, by a
concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, wliich brought in
their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and
cruel proscription and plunder, that those Komans who, in the
days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of
their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater
cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of
rule, which with other vices existed among the Eomans in
more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after
it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued
under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.

Z1. By what steps the passion for governing increased among the Eomans.

For at what stage would that passion rest when once it
has lodged in a proud spirit, until by a succession of advances
it has reached even the throne ? And to obtain such advances
notliing avails but unscrupulous ambition. But unscrupulous
ambition has nothing to work upon, save in a nation corrupted
by avarice and luxury. ]\Ioreover, a people becomes avaricious
and luxurious by prosperity ; and it was this which that very
prudent man Nasica was endeavouring to avoid when he
opposed the destruction of the greatest, strongest, wealthiest
city of Eome's enemy. He thought that thus fear would act as
a curb on lust, and that lust being curbed would not run riot
in luxury, and that luxury being prevented avarice would be
at an end ; and that these vices being banished, virtue would
flourish and increase, to the great profit of the state ; and
liberty, the fit companion of virtue, would abide unfettered.
For similar reasons, and animated by the same considerate
patriotism, that same chief pontiff of yours — I still refer to
him who was adjudged Eome's best man without one dissen-
tient voice — threw cold water on the proposal of the senate
to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in a very
weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious

44 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

manners of Greece to sap the lioman manliness, and per-
suaded them not to yield to the enervating and emasculating
influence of foreign licentiousness. So authoritative and
forcible were liis. words, that the senate was moved to pro-
hibit the use even of those benches which hitherto had been
customarily brouglit to the theatre for tlie temporary use of
the citizens. ^ How eagerly would such a man as this have
banished from Eome the scenic exhibitions themselves, had
he dared to oppose tlie authority of those whom he supposed
to be gods ! For he did not know that they were malicious
devils ; or if he did, he supposed they should rather be propi-
tiated than despised. For there had not yet been revealed to
the Gentiles the heavenly doctrine wliich should purify their
hearts by faith, and transform their natural disposition by
humble godliness, and turn them from the service of proud
devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or even above
the heavens.

32, Of the estalUshment of scenic entertainments.

Know then, ye who are ignorant of this, and ye who feign
ignorance be reminded, while you murmur against Him who
has freed you from such rulers, that the scenic games, exhi-
bitions of shameless folly and licence, were established at
Rome, not by men's vicious cravings, but by the appointment
of your gods. [Much more pardonably might you have
rendered divine honours to Scipio than to such gods as these.
The gods were not so moral as their pontiff. But give me
now your attention, if your mind, inebriated by its deep pota-
tions of error, can take in any sober truth. The gods enjoined
that games be exhibited in their lionour to stay a pliysical
pestilence ; their pontiff prohibited the tlieatre from being con-
structed, to prevent a moral pestilence. K, then, there remains
in you sulHcient mental enlightenment to prefer the soul to
the body, choose whom you will worship. Besides, though
the pestilence was stayed, this was not because the voluptuous
madness of stage-plays had taken possession of a warlike
people hitherto accustomed only to the games of the circus ;
but these astute and wicked spirits, foreseeing that in due

^ Ori;^nally the .spoctators had to stand, nnJ now (according to Livy, Ep.
xlviii. ) the old custom woa restored.

BOOK l] ROME RUINED BY SUCCESS. 45

course the pestilence would shortly cease, took occasion to
infect, not the bodies, but the morals of their worshippers, with
a far more serious disease. And in this pestilence these gods
find great enjoyment, because it benighted the minds of men
with so gross a darkness, and dishonoured them with so foul
a deformity, that even quite recently (will posterity be able to
credit it ?) some of those who fled from the sack of Eome and
found refuge in Carthage, were so infected with this disease,
that day after day they seemed to contend with one another
who should most madly run after the actors in the theatres.

33. That the overthrow of Rome lias not corrected the vices of the Romans.

Oh infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness,
which possesses you ? How is it that while, as we hear, even
the eastern nations are bewailing your ruin, and while power-
ful states in the most remote parts of the earth are mourning
your fall as a public calamity, ye yourselves should be crowd-
ing to the theatres, should be pouring into them and filling
them ; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than ever
before ? This was the foul plague-spot, this the "UTcck of
virtue and honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from
when he prohibited the construction of theatres ; this was his
reason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear,
seeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and
destroy you. He did not consider that republic flourishing
whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the
seductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you
than the precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries
you do, you will not permit to be imputed to you ; but the
injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Depraved by
good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire
in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the
tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your
own vicious luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed
by an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxu-
rious manners ; but so abandoned are you, that not even
when crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You
have missed the profit of your calamity ; you have been made
most wretched, and have remained most profligate.

46 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK I.

34. Of God's clemenq/ in moderating the ruin of the city.

And that you are yet alive is due to God, who spares you
that you may be adinonislied to repent and reform your lives.
It is He who has permitted you, ungrateful as you are, to escape
the sword of the enemy, by calling yourselves His servants,
or by finding asylum in the sacred places of the martyrs.

It is said that Komulus and Remus, in order to increase
the population of the city they founded, opened a sanctuary
in which every man miglit find asylum and absolution of all
crime, — a remarkable foreshadowing of what has recently
occurred in honour of Christ. Tlie destroyers of Piome fol-
lowed the example of its founders. But it was not greatly
to their credit that the latter, for the sake of increasing the
number of their citizens, did tliat which the former have done,
lest the number of their enemies should be diminished.

35. 0/ the soils of the church tcho are hidden among the wicked, and of false
Christians within the church.

Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers
can be found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family
of the Lord Christ, and by the pilgrim city of King Christ.
But let this city bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid
those who are destined to be feUow-citizens, that she may
not think it a fruitless labour to bear what they inflict as
enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too,
as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has
in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some
who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of
these, some are not now recognised; others declare them-
selves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with
our enemies in nmrnmring against God, whose sacramentiil
badge they wear. These men you may to-day see throng-
ing tlie churches with us, to-morrow crowding the tlieatres
with the godless. But we have the less reason to despair of
the reclamation even of such persons, if among our most
declared enemies tliere are now some, unknown to themselves,
who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these two
cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed
until the last judgment eflect their separation. I now proceed
to s]jeak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end

BOOK I.] CONCLUSION. 47

of these two cities ; and what I wTite, I write for the glory of
the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the
other, it may shine with a brighter lustre.

36. What subjects are to he handled in thefollovnng discourse.

But I have still some things to say in confutation of those
who refer the disasters of the Eoman republic to our religion,
because it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods. For
tliis end I must recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient,
of the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces,
before these sacrifices were prohibited ; for all these disasters
they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our
religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their
sacrifices. I must then go on to show what social well-being
the true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to
grant to them that their empire might increase. I must show
why He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding
them, greatly injured them by guile and deceit. And, lastly, I
must meet those who, when on this point convinced and con-
futed by irrefragable proofs, endeavour to maintain that they
worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this
life, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death. And
this, if I am not mistaken, will be the most difficult part of my
task, and will be worthy of the loftiest argument ; for w^e must
then enter the lists with the philosophers, not the mere common
herd of philosophers, but the most renowned, who in many points
agree with ourselves, as regarding the immortality of the soul,
and that the true God created the world, and by His provi-
dence rules all He has created. But as they differ from us
on other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing
their errors, that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked
wdth such ability as God may vouchsafe, we may assert the
city of God, and true piety, and the worship of God, to which
alone the promise of true and everlasting felicity is attached.
Here, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on these sub-
jects in a fresh book.

48 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK H.

BOOK SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK AUGUSTINE REVIEWS THOSE CALAMITIES WHICH THE ROMANS SUF-
FERED BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST, AND WHILE THE WORSHIP OF THE
FALSE GODS WAS UNIVERSALLY PRACTISED ; AND DEMONSTRATES THAT, FAR
FROM BEING PRESERVED FROM MISFORTUNE BY THE GODS, THE ROMANS
HAVE BEEN BY THEM OVERWHELMED WITH THE ONLY, OR AT LEAST THE
GREATEST, OF ALL CALAMITIES — THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, AND THE
VICES OF THE SOUL.

1. Of the limits which must he put to the necessity of replying to an adversary.

IF the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear
evidence of trutli, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome
doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from
God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they
who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language,
would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of
empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more
prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent tliat even
after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can
prove it to man, they hold for the very trutli their own un-
reasonable fancies, either on account of their gi'cat blindness,
which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before
them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which pre-
vents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
There therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more
fidly on those points which are already clear, that we may, as
it were, present them not to the eye, but even to the touch,
so tliat they may be felt even by those who close their eyes
a^rainst them. And yet to what end shall we ever brin<? our
discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we
proceed on tlu^ ])rin('iplc that we must always reply to those
who reply to us ? For those who are cither imable to under-
stand our arguments, or are so hardened by the habit of con-

BOOK II.] RECAPITULATION OF BOOK FIRST. 49

tradiction, tliat though they understand they cannot yield to
them, reply to us, and, as it is written, " speak hard things," ^
and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to propose to con-
fute their objections as often as they with brazen face chose
to disregard our arguments, and as often as they could by any
means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and
fruitless, and painful a task we should be undertaking. And
therefore I do not wish my writings to be judged even by you,
my son Marcellinus, nor by any of those others at whose ser-
vice this work of mine is freely and in all Christian charity
put, if at least you intend always to require a reply to every
exception which you hear taken to what you read in it ; for
so you would become like those silly women of whom the
apostle says that they are " always learning, and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth." ^

2. Itecapitulation of the contents of the first hooh.

In the foregoing book, having begun to speak of the city
of God, to which I have resolved, Heaven helping me, to con-
secrate the whole of this work, it was my first endeavour
to reply to those who attribute the wars by which the world
is being devastated, and specially the recent sack of Eome
by the barbarians, to the religion of Christ, which prohibits
the offering of abominable sacrifices to devils. I have
shoT\Ti that they ought rather to attribute it to Christ, that
for His name's sake the barbarians, in contravention of all
custom and law of w^ar, threw open as sanctuaries the largest
churches, and in many instances showed such reverence to
Clirist, that not only His genuine servants, but even those who
in their terror feigned themselves to be so, were exempted from
all those hardships which by the custom of war may lawfully
be inflicted. Then out of this there arose the question, why
wicked and ungrateful men were permitted to share in these
benefits ; and why, too, the hardships and calamities of war
were inflicted on the godly as well as on the ungodly. And in
giving a suitably full answer to this large question, I occupied
some considerable space, partly that I might relieve the
anxieties which disturb many when they observe that the
blessings of God, and the common and daily human casualties,

1 Ps. xciv. 4. 2 2 Tim. iii. 7.

VOL. L D

50 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK 11.

fall to the lot of bad men and good without distinction ; but
mainly tliat I miglit minister some consolation to those holy
and chaste women who were outraged by the enemy, in such
a way as to shock their modesty, though not to sully their
purity, and that I might preserve them from being ashamed
of life, tliough they liave no guilt to be ashamed of. And
then I briefly spoke against those who with a most shameless
wantonness insult over those poor Christians who were sub-
jected to those calamities, and especially over those broken-
hearted and humiliated, though chaste and holy women ; these
fellows themselves being most depraved and unmanly profli-
gates, quite degenerate from the genuine Ptomans, whose
famous deeds are abundantly recorded in history, and every-
where celebrated, but who have found in their descendants the
greatest enemies of their glory. In truth, Home, which was
founded and increased by the labours of these ancient heroes,
was more shamefully ruined by their descendants, while its
walls were still standing, than it is now by the razing of them.
For in this ruin there fell stones and timbers ; but in the ruin
those profligates effected, there fell, not the mural, but the
moral bulwarks and ornaments of the city, and their hearts
burned with passions more destructive than the flames which
consumed their houses. Thus I brought my first book to a
close. And now I go on to speak of those calamities which
that city itself, or its subject provinces, have suffered since
its foundation ; all of which they would equally have attri-
buted to the Christian religion, if at that early period tlie
doctrine of the gospel against their false and deceiving gods
had been as largely and freely proclaimed as now.

3. That xpt need only to read hlntory in order to see what calamities the liomarm
suffered b'/ure the rcliijion v/ Christ bejan to compete with the worship of
tlve gods.

r>ut remember that, in recounting these tilings, I have still
to address myself to ignorant men ; so ignorant, indeed, as to
rrive birtli to tlin coininon sayin;^, " Drought and Christianity
go liand in hand."^ Tliere are indeed some among them who

» *' riiivia (Icfit, causa Christiani." Similar accusations ami similar replies may-
be seen in the celebrated passafjc of Tcrtullian's Apol. c. 40, and in the eloquent
exordium of Arnubius, C, Oentes.

BOOK II.] THE GODS ISSUED NO MORAL LAW. 51

are tlioroiiglily well educated men, and have a taste for liistor}^,
in wliich the things I speak of are open to their observation ;
but in order to irritate the uneducated masses against us, they
feign ignorance of these events, and do what they can to make
the vulgar believe that those disasters, Avhich in certain places
and at certain times uniformly befall mankind, are the result
of Christianity, which is being everywhere diffused, and is
possessed of a renown and brilliancy which quite eclipse
their own gods.^ Let them then, along with us, call to mind
with what various and repeated disasters the prosperity of
Ptome was blidited, before ever Christ had come in the flesh,
and before His name had been blazoned among the nations
with that glory which they vainly grudge. Let them, if they
can, defend their gods in this article, since they maintain
that they worship them in order to be preserved from these
disasters, which they now impute to us if they suffer in the
least degree. For why did these gods permit the disasters
I am to speak of to fall on their worshippers before the
preaching of Christ's name offended them, and put an end to
their sacrifices ?

4. That the luorshippers of the gods never received from them any healthy moral
precepts, and that in celebrating their worship all sorts of impurities were
practised.

First of all, we would ask why their gods took no steps to
improve the morals of their worshippers. That the true God
should neglect those who did not seek His help, that was but
justice ; but why did those gods, from whose worship ungrate-
ful men are now complaining that they are prohibited, issue
no laws which might have guided their devotees to a virtuous
life ? Surely it was but just, that such care as men showed
to the worship of the gods, the gods on their part should have
to the conduct of men. But, it is replied, it is by his own
will a man goes astray. Who denies it ? But none the less
was it incumbent on these gods, who were men's guardians,
to publish in plain terms the laws of a good life, and not to

1 Angiistine is supposed to refer to Symmachus, who similarly accused the
Christians in his address to the Emperor Valentinianus in the year 384. At
Augustine's request, Paulus Orosius wrote his history in confutation of Sym-
maclms' charfres.

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK U.

conceal them from their worshippers. It was their part to
send prophets to reach and convict such as broke these laws,
and publicly to proclaim the punishments wliich await evil-
doers, and the rewards which may be looked for by those that
do well. Did ever the walls of any of their temples echo to
any such warning voice ? I myself, when I was a young
man, used sometimes to go to the sacrilegious entertainments
and spectacles ; I saw the priests raving in religious excite-
ment, and heard the choristers ; I took pleasure in the shameful
games which were celebrated in honour of gods and goddesses,
of the virgin Ccclestis,^ and Berecynthia,^ the mother of all the
gods. And on the holy day consecrated to her purification,
there were sung before her couch productions so obscene and
filthy for the ear — I do not say of the mother of the gods, but
of the mother of any senator or honest man — nay, so impure,
that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players them-
selves could have formed one of the audience. For natural
reverence for parents is a bond which the most abandoned
cannot ignore. And, accordingly, the lewd actions and filthy
words with which these players honoured the mother of the
gods, in presence of a vast assemblage and audience of both
sexes, they could not for very shame have rehearsed at home
in presence of their own mothers. And the crowds that were
gathered from all quarters by curiosity, offended modesty
must, I should suppose, have scattered in the confusion of
shame. If these are sacred rites, what is sacrilege ? If this
is purification, what is pollution ? This festivity was called
the Tables,^ as if a banquet were being given at which unclean
devils miglit find suitable refreshment. For it is not diflicult

' Tertnllian (Apol. c. 24) mentions Crplostis ns sppcially worshipped in Afnca.
Aupustine mentions her again in tlie 2Gth cliapter of this book, and in other
parts of Ilia works,

' Ikrecynthia is one of the many names of Ivhea or Cybelo. Li\7' (xxix. 11)
relates tliat tlie imaj^'c of CybeU- was brought to Home the day before the ides
of April, wliich was accordingly dedicated as her feast-day. The image, it
seems, had to be wa.shed in tlie stream Almon, a tributary of the Tiber, before
being pla<M'd in the temple of Victory ; and each year, as the festival returned, the
washing was repeated with much ]iomp at the same spot. Hence Lucan's line
(i. 600), 'Et lotam parvo revocant Almonc Cybclcn,' and tlie elegant verses of
Ovid, Fast. iv. 337 et scq.

* "Fercula," dishes, or courses.

BOOK II.] OBSCENITIES OF THEIR WOBSIIIP. 53

to see what kind of spirits they must be who are delighted
with such obscenities, unless, indeed, a man be blinded by
these evil spirits passing themselves off under the name of
gods, and either disbelieves in their existence, or leads such a
life as prompts him rather to propitiate and fear them than the
true God.

5. Of the ohsceniiies practised in honour of the mother of the gods.

In this matter I would prefer to have as my assessors in
judgment, not those men who rather take pleasure in these
infamous customs than take pains to put an end to them, but
that same Scipio Nasica who was chosen by the senate as
the citizen most worthy to receive in his hands the image of
that demon Cybele, and convey it into the city. He would
tell us whether he would be proud to see his own mother
so highly esteemed by the state as to have divine honours
adjudged to her ; as the Greeks and Eomans and other nations
have decreed divine honours to men who had been of material
service to them, and have believed that their mortal bene-
factors were thus made immortal, and enrolled among the
gods.-^ Surely he would desire that his mother should enjoy
such felicity were it possible. But if we proceeded to ask
him whether, among the honours paid to her, he would wish
such shameful rites as these to be celebrated, would he not at
once exclaim that he would rather his mother lay stone-dead,
than survive as a goddess to lend her ear to these obscenities ?
Is it possible that he who was of so severe a morality, that
he used his influence as a Eoman senator to prevent the
building of a theatre in that city dedicated to the manly
virtues, would wish his mother to be propitiated as a goddess
with words wliich would have brought the blush to her cheek
when a Eoman matron ? Could he possibly believe that the
modesty of an estimable woman would be so transformed by
her promotion to divinity, that she would suffer herself to be
invoked and celebrated in terms so gross and immodest, that
if she had heard the like while alive upon earth, and had
listened without stopping her ears and hurrying from the
spot, her relatives, her husband, and her children would have

^ See Cicero, De Xat. Dear. ii. 24.

54 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK 11.

blushed for her ? Therefore, the mother of the gods being
such a character as the most profligate man would be ashamed
to have for his mother, and meaning to enthral the minds of
the Itomans, demanded for her service their best citizen, not
to ripen him still more in virtue by her helpful counsel, but
to entangle him by her deceit, like her of whom it is written,
"The adulteress will hunt for the precious soul."^ Iler intent
was to puff up this high-souled man by an apparently divine
testimony to his excellence, in order that he might rely upon
his own eminence in virtue, and make no further efforts after
true piety and religion, without which natural genius, however
brilliant, vapours into pride and comes to nothing. For what
but a guileful purpose could that goddess demand the best
man, seeing that in her own sacred festivals she requires such
obscenities as the best men would be covered with shame to
hear at their own tables ?

C. Thdt the gods of the pagans, never inculcated lioliness of life.

This is the reason why those divinities quite neglected the
lives and morals of the cities and nations who worshipped
them, and threw no dreadful prohibition in their way to
hinder them from becoming utterly corrupt, and to preser\'e
them from those terrible and detestable evils w^hich visit not
harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the body
wliich is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that
rules the whole man. If there was any such prohibition, let
it be produced, let it be proved. They will tell us that purity
and probity were inculcated upon those who were initiated in
the mysteries of religion, and that secret incitements to virtue
were whispered in the ear of the elite; but this is an idle
boast. I^t them show or name to us the places which were
at any time consecrated to assemblages in which, instead of
the obscene songs and licentious acting of players, instead of
tlu; celebration of those most lilthy and shameless Fugalia^

^ Prov. vi. 2n.

* Kuf^alia. Vivcs is uncertain to what feast Augnstine refers. Censorinns
nndorstands him to n-fer to a feast celebrating the expulsion of the kings from
Rome. This feast, however (celebrated on the 24th February), was commonly
called " lie^'ifu^iuin."

BOOK 11.] VALUE OF THE MORAL TEACHING OF rillLOSOPIIERS. 55

(well called Fugalia, since they banish modesty and right
feeling), the people were commanded in the name of the gods
to restrain avarice, bridle impurity, and conquer ambition;
where, in short, they might learn in that school which Persius
vehemently lashes them to, when he says : " Be taught, ye
abandoned creatures, and ascertain the causes of things ; what
we are, and for what end we are born ; what is the law of
our success in life, and by what art we may turn the goal
without making shipwreck ; what limit we should put to our
wealth, what we may lawfully desire, and what uses filthy
lucre serves ; how much we should bestow upon our country
and our family ; learn, in short, what God meant thee to be,
and what place He has ordered you to fill."-^ Let them name
to us the places where such instructions were wont to be
communicated from the gods, and where the people who wor-
shipped thei|i were accustomed to resort to hear them, as we
can point to our churches built for this purpose in every land
where the Christian religion is received.

7. That the suggestions of philosophers are precluded from having any moral
effect, because they have not the authority which belongs to divine instruc-
tion, and because man's natural bias to evil induces him rather to follow
the examples of the gods than to obey the precepts of men.

But will they perhaps remind us of the schools of the
pliilosophers, and their disputations ? In the first place, these
belong not to Eome, but to Greece ; and even if we yield to
them that they are now Eoman, because Greece itself has
become a Koman province, still the teacliings of the philoso-
phers are not the commandments of the gods, but the dis-
coveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative
ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and
the right and wrong in etliics, and in dialectic what was con-
sequent according to the rules of logic, and what was incon-
sequent and erroneous. And some of them, by God's help,
made great discoveries ; but when left to themselves they
wxre betrayed by human infirmity, and fell into mistakes. And
this was ordered by divine providence, that their pride might
be restrained, and that by their example it might be pointed
out that it is humility which has access to the liighest regions.
^ Persius, Sat. iii. 66-72.

56 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK n.

But of tliis we shall have more to say, if the Lord God of
truth permit, iu its own place.^ However, if the philosophers
have made any discoveries which are suilicient to guide men
to virtue and blessedness, would it not have been greater
justice to vote divine honours to them ? Were it not more
accordant with every virtuous sentiment to read Plato's ^\Tit-
ings in a " Temple of Plato," than to be present in the temples
of devils to witness the priests of Cybele ^ mutilating them-
selves, the effeminate being consecrated, the raving fanatics
cutting themselves, and whatever other cruel or shameful, or
shamefully cruel or cruelly shameful, ceremony is enjoined by
the ritual of such gods as these ? Were it not a more suitable
education, and more likely to prompt the youth to virtue, if
they heard public recitals of the laws of the gods, instead of
the vain laudation of the customs and laws of their ancestors ?
Certainly all the worshippers of the Ptoman gods, when once
they are possessed by what Persius calls " the burning poison
of lust," ^ prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter rather than to
hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young
profligate in Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco re-
presenting the fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Danae
iu the form of a golden shower, accepts this as authoritative
precedent for his own licentiousness, and boasts that he is au
imitator of God. " And what God ? " he says. " He who
with His thunder shakes the loftiest temples. And was I, a
poor creature compared to Him, to make bones of it ? No ;
I did it, and with all my heart." *

^ Seo brlow, books viii.-xii.

2 "Galli," tlie castrated priests of Cybele, who were Tiamctl after the river
Callus, in Phrygia, the water of which was supposed to intoxicate or madden
those who drank it. According to Vitruvius (viii. 3), there was a similar foun-
tain in Paphlagonia. Apuh'ius {Golden Ass, viii.) gives a graphic and
humorous description of the dress, dancing, and imposture of those priests ;
mentioning, among other things, that they lashed themselves with wliips and
cut tlic'insclvcs with knives till the ground was wet with blood.

3 Pirsius, Sat. iii. 37.

* Tor. £un. iii. 5. 36 ; and cf. the similar allusion in Aristoph. Clouds,
1033-4. It may bo added that the arg\iment of this chapter wjis largely used
by the wiser o( the heathen themselves. Dionysius Hal. (ii. 20) and Seneca
(De Brcv. Vit. c. xvi.) make the vtry same complaint ; and it will be re-
membered that his adoption of tliis reasoning was one of tlie grounds on which
Euripides was suspected of atheism.

BOOK II.] DRAMATIC PLAYS ENJOINED BY THE GODS. 57

8. That the theatrical exhibitions publishing the shameful actions of the gods,
propitiated rather than offended them.

But, some one will interpose, these are the fables of jjoets,
not the deliverances of the gods themselves. "Well, I have
no mind to arbitrate between the lewdness of theatrical enter-
tainments and of mystic rites ; only this I say, and history
bears me out in making the assertion, that those same enter-
tainments, in which the fictions of poets are the main attrac-
tion, were not introduced in the festivals of the gods by the
ignorant devotion of the Eomans, but that the gods themselves
gave the most urgent commands to this effect, and indeed ex-
torted from the Komans these solemnities and celebrations in
theu^ honour. I touched on this in the preceding book, and
mentioned that dramatic entertainments were first inaugurated
at Eome on occasion of a pestilence, and by authority of the
pontiff. And what man is there who is not more likely to
adopt, for the regulation of his own life, the examjples that are
represented in plays which have a divine sanction, rather than
the precepts written and promulgated with no more than
human authority ? If the poets gave a false representation
of Jove in describing him as adulterous, then it were to be ex-
pected that the chaste gods should in anger avenge so wicked
a fiction, in place of encouraging the games which circulated
it. Of these plays, the most inoffensive are comedies and
tragedies, that is to say, the dramas which poets write for
the stage, and which, though they often handle impure subjects,
yet do so without the filthiness of language which charac-
terizes many other performances ; and it is these dramas which
boys are obliged by their seniors to read and learn as a part
of what is called a liberal and gentlemanly education.^

9. That the poetical licence winch the Greeks, in obedience to their gods, allowed,
was restrained by the ancient Romans.

The opinion of the ancient Eomans on this matter is
attested by Cicero in his work De BqmUica, in which Scipio,
one of the interlocutors, says, " The lewdness of comedy could
never have been suffered by audiences, unless the customs of
society had previously sanctioned the same lewdness." And

^ This sentence recalls Augustine's own experience as a boy, which he bewails
in his Confessions.

58 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IL

ill tlie earlier days the Greeks preserved a certain reasonable-
ness in their licence, and made it a law, tliat whatever comedy-
wished to say of any one, it must say it of him by name.
And so in the same work of Cicero's, Scipio says, " Whom
has it not aspersed ? Nay, whom has it not worried ? "Whom
has it spared ? Allow that it may assail demagogues and
factions, men injurious to the commonwealth — a Cleon, a Cleo-
phon, a Hyperbolas. That is tolerable, though it had been
more seemly for tlie public censor to brand such men, than
for a poet to lampoon them ; but to blacken the fame of
Pericles with scurrilous verse, after he had with the utmost
dignity presided over their state alike in war and in peace,
was as unworthy of a poet, as if our own Plautus or Kievius
were to bring Publius and Cneius Scipio on the comic stage, or
as if Ccecilius were to caricature Cato." And then a little after
he goes on : " Though our Twelve Tables attached the penalty
of death only to a very few offences, yet among these few this
was one : if any man should have sung a pasquinade, or have
composed a satire calculated to bring infamy or disgrace on
another person. AVisely decreed. For it is by the decisions
of magistrates, and by a well-informed justice, that our lives
ought to be judged, and not by the flighty fancies of poets ;
neither ought we to be exposed to hear calumnies, save where
we have the liberty of replying, and defending ourselves before
an adequate tribunal." This much I have judged it advisable
to quote from the fourth book of Cicero's Dc Iicjmhlica ; and
I have made the quotation word for word, with the exception
of some words omitted, and some slightly transposed, for the
sake of giving the sense more readily. And certainly the
extract is pertinent to the matter I am endeavouring to ex-
])lain. Cicero makes some further remarks, and concludes
the passage by showing that the ancient Piomans did not
permit any living man to be either praised or blamed on the
stage. Put the Greeks, as I said, though not so moral, were
more logical in allowing tliis licence which the Pomans for-
bade : for they saw that their gods approved and enjoyed the
scurrilous language of low comedy when directed not only
against men, but even against themselves ; and this, whether
the infamous actions imputed to them were the fictions of

BOOK II.] TLAYEES HONOURED BY THE GREEKS. 59

poets, or were their actual iniquities commemorated and acted
in the theatres. And would that the spectators had judged
them worthy only of laughter, and not of imitation ! Mani-
festly it had been a stretch of pride to spare the good name
of the leading men and the common citizens, when the very
deities did not grudge that their own reputation should be
blemished.

10, That the devils, in suffering either false or true crimes to he laid to their
charge, meant to do men a mischief.

It is alleged, in excuse of this practice, that the stories told
of the gods are not true, but false, and mere inventions ; but
this only makes matters worse, if we form our estimate by
the morality our religion teaches ; and if we consider the
malice of the devils, what more wily and astute artifice could
they practise upon men ? When a slander is uttered against
a leading statesman of upright and useful life, is it not repre-
hensible in proportion to its untruth and groundlessness ?
What punishment, then, shall be sufficient when the gods are
the objects of so wicked and outrageous an injustice ? But
the devils, whom these men repute gods, are content that even
iniquities they are guiltless of should be ascribed to them, so
long as they may entangle men's minds in the meshes of these
opinions, and draw them on along with themselves to their
predestinated punishment : whether such things were actu-
ally committed by the men whom these devils, delighting in
human infatuation, cause to be worshipped as gods, and in
w^hose stead they, by a thousand malign and deceitful artifices,
substitute themselves, and so receive worship ; or whether,
though they were really the crimes of men, these wicked
spirits gladly allowed them to be attributed to higher beings,
that there might seem to be conveyed from heaven itself a
sufficient sanction for the perpetration of shameful wickedness.
The Greeks, therefore, seeing the character of the gods they
served, thought that the poets should certainly not refrain
from showing up human vices on the stage, either because
they desired to be like their gods in this, or because they were
afraid that, if they required for themselves a more unblemished
reputation than they asserted for the gods, they might provoke
them to anger.

60 THE CITY OF GOD. [bOOK H.

11. That the Greeks admitted players to ofices of state, on the ground that men
who pleased the gods should not he contemptuously treated by their fellows.

It was a part of this same reasonaLleness of the Greeks
which induced them to bestow upon the actors of these same
plays no inconsiderable civic honours. In the above-men-
tioned book of the De Ecpuhlica, it is mentioned that iEschines,
a very eloquent Athenian, who had been a tragic actor in his
youth, became a statesman, and that the Athenians again and
again sent another tragedian, Aristodemus, as their plenipo-
tentiary to Philip. For they judged it unbecoming to con-
demn and treat as infamous persons those who were the chief
actors in the scenic entertainments which they saw to be so
pleasing to the gods. No doubt this was immoral of the
Greeks, but there can be as little doubt they acted in con-
formity with the character of their gods ; for how could they
have presumed to protect the conduct of the citizens from
being cut to pieces by the tongues of poets and players, who
were allowed, and even enjoined by the gods, to tear their
divine reputation to tatters ? And how could they hold in
contempt the men who acted in the theatres those dramas
which, as they had ascertained, gave pleasure to the gods
whom they worshipped ? Nay, how could they but grant to
them the highest civic honours ? On what plea could they
honour the priests who offered for them acceptable sacrifices
to the gods, if they branded with infamy the actors who in
behalf of the people gave to the gods that pleasure or honour
which they demanded, and which, according to the account of
the priests, they were angry at not receiving ? Labeo,^ whose
learning makes him an authority on such points, is of opinion
that the distinction between good and evil deities should find
expression in a difference of worship ; tliat the evil should be
propitiated by bloody sacrifices and doleful rites, but the good
with a joyful and pleasant observance, as, c.j. (as he says him-
self), with plays, festivals, and banquets.^ All this we shall,

* Labco, a jurist of the time of Aiigiistus, learned in law and antiquities,
and the author of several works mu^h prized by his own and some succeeding
ages. The two articles in Smith's Dictionary on Antistius and Cornelius
Labco should be read.

' " Lectisternia," feasts in which the images of the gods were laid on pillows
in the streets, and all kinds at food set before them.

BOOK IL] players DISGRACED BY THE B0MAX3. 61

with God's help, hereafter discuss. At present, and speaking
to the suhject on hand, whether all kinds of offerings are made
indiscriminately to all the gods, as if all were good (and it is
an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods ; but
these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods,
but evil spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, a distinction is
made between the offerings presented to the different gods,
the Greeks are equally justified in honouring alike the priests
by whom the sacrifices are offered, and the players by whom
the dramas are acted, that they may not be open to the charge
of doing an injury to all their gods, if the plays are pleasing
to all of them, or (which were still worse) to their good gods,
if the plays are relished only by them.

12. That the Romans, hy refusing to the poets the same licence in respect of men
which they allowed them in the case of the gods, shoived a more delicate
sensitiveness regarding themselves than regarding the gods.

The Eomans, however, as Scipio boasts in that same dis-
cussion, declined having their conduct and good name subjected
to the assaults and slanders of the poets, and went so far as
to make it a capital crime if any one should dare to compose
such verses. This was a very honourable course to pursue, so
far as they themselves were concerned, but in respect of the
gods it was proud and irreligious : for they knew that the
gods not only tolerated, but relished, being lashed by the in-
jurious expressions of the poets, and yet they themselves would
not suffer this same handling ; and what their ritual prescribed
as acceptable to the gods, their law prohibited as injurious to
themselves. How then, Scipio, do you praise the Eomans for
refusing this licence to the poets, so that no citizen could be
calumniated, while you know that the gods were not included
under this protection ? Do you count your senate-house
worthy of so much higher a regard than the Capitol ? Is the
one city of Eome more valuable in your eyes than the whole
heaven of gods, that you proliibit your poets from uttering
any injurious words against a citizen, though they may with
impunity cast what imputations they please upon the gods,
without the interference of senator, censor, prince, or pontiff ?
It was, forsooth, intolerable that Plautus or Nsevius should
attack Publius and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Coecilius

62 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

should lampoon Cato ; but quite proper that your Terence
sliould encourage youthful lust by the wicked example of
supreme Jove.

13. That the Romans should have understood that gods who desired to he wor-
shipped in licentious entertainments were unworthy oj divine honour.

But Scipio, were he alive, would possibly reply : " How
could we attach a penalty to that which the gods themselves
have consecrated ? For the theatrical entertainments in wliich
such things are said, and acted, and performed, were intro-
duced into Eoman society by the gods, who ordered that they
should be dedicated and exhibited in their honour." But was
not this, then, the plainest proof tliat they were no true gods,
nor in any respect worthy of receiving divine honours from
the republic ? Suppose they had required that in their
honour the citizens of Eome should be held up to ridicule,
every Eoman would have resented the hateful proposal. How
then, I would ask, can they be esteemed worthy of worship,
when they propose that their own crimes be used as material
for celebrating their praises ? Does not this artifice expose
them, and prove that they are detestable devils ? Thus the
Eomans, though they were superstitious enough to serve as
gods those who made no secret of their desire to be worshipped
in licentious plays, yet had sufficient regard to their hereditary
dignity and virtue, to prompt them to refuse to players any
such rewards as the Greeks accorded them. On this point
we have this testimony of Scipio, recorded in Cicero : " They
[the Eomans] considered comedy and all theatrical perform-
ances as disgraceful, and therefore not only debarred players
from offices and honours open to ordinary citizens, but also
decreed that their names should be branded by the censor, and
erased from the roll of their tribe." An excellent decree, and
another testimony to the sagacity of Eome ; but I could wish
their innidence had been more thoroughgoing and consistent.
For when I hear that if any Eoman citizen cliose the stage as
his profession, he not only closed to himself every laudable
career, but even became an outcast from his own tribe, I cannot
but exclaim : This is the true Eoman spirit, this is worthy of
a state jealous of its reputation. But then some one interrupts
my rapture, by inquuing with what consistency players ai'C

BOOK II.] INCONSISTENCY OF THE ROMANS. C3

debarred from all honours, while plays are counted among the
honours due to the gods ? For a long while the virtue of
Rome was uncontaminated by theatrical exhibitions ;^ and if
they had been adopted for the sake of gratifying the taste of
the citizens, they woidd have been introduced hand in hand
with the relaxation of manners. But the fact is, that it was
the gods who demanded that they should be exhibited to
gratify them. With what justice, then, is the player excom-
municated by whom God is worshipped ? On what pretext
can you at once adore him who exacts, and brand him who
acts these plays ? This, then, is the controversy in which the
Greeks and Romans are engaged. The Greeks think they
justly honour players, because they worship the gods who
demand plays : the Romans, on the other hand, do not suffer
an actor to disgrace by his name his own plebeian tribe, far
less the senatorial order. And the whole of this discussion
may be summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks
give us the major premiss : If such gods are to be worshipped,
then certainly such men may be honoured. The Romans add
the minor : But such men must by no means be honoured.
The Christians draw the conclusion : Therefore such gods must
by no means be worshipped.

14. Tltat Plato, who excluded poets from a well-ordered city, was better than
these gods who desire to he honoured by theatrical plays.

We have still to inquire why the poets who write the
plays, and who by the law of the twelve tables are prohibited
from injuring the good name of the citizens, are reckoned more
estimable than the actors, though they so shamefully asperse
the character of the gods ? Is it right that the actors of these
poetical and God-dishonouring effusions be branded, while
their authors are honoured ? Must we not here award the
palm to a Greek, Plato, who, in framing his ideal republic,^
conceived that poets should be banished from the city as
enemies of the state ? He could not brook that the gods be

^ According to Livy (vii. 2), theatrical exhibitions were introduced in the
year 392 A.u.c. Before that time, he says, there had only been the games of tlie
circns. The Romans sent to Etruria for players, who were called "histriones,"
"hister" being the Tuscan word for a player. Other particulars are added
by Livy.

^ See the Republic, book iiL

G4 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

brought into disrepute, nor that the minds of the citizens be
depraved and besotted, by the fictions of tlie poets. Compare
now Imman nature as you see it in Plato, expelling poets
from the city that the citizens be uninjured, with the divine
nature as you see it in these gods exacting plays in their
own honour. Plato strove, though imsuccessfully, to persuade
the light-minded and lascivious Greeks to abstain from so
much as writing such plays ; the gods used their authority to
extort the acting of tlie same from the dignified and sober-
minded Ptomans. And not content with having them acted,
they had them dedicated to themselves, consecrated to them-
selves, solemnly celebrated in their own honour. To which,
then, would it be more becoming in a state to decree divine
honours, — to Plato, who j)rohibited these wicked and licentious
plays, or to the demons who delighted in blinding men to the
truth of what Plato unsuccessfully sought to inculcate ?

This philosopher, Plato, has been elevated by Labeo to the
rank of a demigod, and set thus upon a level with such as
Hercules and Komulus. Labeo ranks demigods higher than
heroes, but both he counts among the deities. But I have no
doubt that he thinlvs this man whom he reckons a demigod
worthy of greater respect not only than the heroes, but also
than the gods themselves. The laws of the Eomans and the
speculations of Plato have this resemblance, that the latter
pronounces a wholesale condemnation of poetical fictions,
while the former restrain the licence of satire, at least so far
as men are the objects of it, Plato will not suffer poets
even to dwell in his city : the laws of Pome prohibit actors
from being enrolled as citizens ; and if they had not feared to
offend the gods wlio had asked the services of the players, they
would in all likelihood have banished them altogether. It is
obvious, therefore, that the Romans could not receive, nor
reasonably expect to receive, laws for the regulation of their
\ conduct from their gods, since the laws they themselves enacted
far surpassed and put to shame the morality of the gods. The
gods demand stage-plays in their own honour ; the Eomans
exclude the players from all ci\ ic honours : * the former
commanded that they should be celebrated by the scenic repre-

* Comp. Tertullian, De Spcctac. c. 22.

BOOK II.] PLATO MORE MORAL THAN THE GODS. 65

sentation of their own disgrace ; the latter commanded that
no poet should dare to blemish the reputation of any citizen.
But that demigod Plato resisted the lust of such gods as
these, and showed the Eomans what their genius had left
incomplete ; for he absolutely excluded poets from his ideal
state, whether they composed fictions with no regard to truth,
or set the worst possible examples before wretched men
under the guise of divine actions. We for our part, indeed,
reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod ; we would not
even compare him to any of God's holy angels, nor to the
truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs
of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man. The reason
of this opinion of ours we will, God prospering us, render in
its own place. Nevertheless, since they wish him to be con-
sidered a demigod, we think he certainly is more entitled
to that rank, and is every way superior, if not to Hercules
and Eomulus (though no historian could ever narrate nor any
poet sing of him that he had killed his brother, or committed
any crime), yet certainly to Priapus, or a Cynocephalus,^ or
the Fever,^ — divinities whom the Eomans have partly received
from foreigners, and partly consecrated by home-grown rites.
How, then, could gods such as these be expected to promulgate
good and wholesome laws, either for the prevention of moral
and social evils, or for their eradication where they had already
sprung up ? — gods who used their influence even to sow and
cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or falsely
ascribed to them should be published to the people by means
of theatrical exhibitions, and by thus gratuitously fanning the
flame of human lust with the breath of a seemingly divine
approbation. In vain does Cicero, speaking of poets, exclaim
against this state of things in these words : " When the
plaudits and acclamation of the people, who sit as infallible
judges, are won by the poets, what darkness benights the
mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it ! " ^

^ The Egyptian gods represented with dogs' heads, called by Lucan (viii. 832)
sanicanes deos.

2 The Fever liad, according to Vives, three altars in Home. See Cicero, De
Nat. Deor. iii. 25, and iElian, Var. Hist. xii. 11.

^ Cicero, De EcpuUka, v. Compare the third Tusculan Qucest. c. ii.

VOL. I. E

G(j THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

15. That it xcaa vault ;/, not reason, which created some of the Roman gods.

But is it not manifest that vanity rather than reason regu-
lated the choice of some of their false gods ? This Plato,
^vhom they reckon a demigod, and who used all his eloquence
to preserve men from the most dangerous spiritual calamities,
has yet not been counted worthy even of a little shrine ; hut
Komulus, because they can call him their own, they have
esteemed more highly than many gods, though their secret doc-
trine can allow hun the rank only of a demigod To him they
allotted a flamen, tliat is to say, a priest of a class so highly
esteemed in their religion (distinguished, too, by their conical
mitres), that for only three of their gods were flamens appointed,
— the Flamen Dialis for Jupiter, Martialis for Mars, and Quiri-
nalis for Eomulus (for when the ardour of his feUow- citizens
had given Eomulus a seat among the gods, they gave him this
new name Quirinus). And thus by this honour Eomulus has
been preferred to Xeptune and Pluto, Jupiter's brothers, and
to Saturn himself, their father. They have assigned the same
priesthood to serve him as to serve Jove ; and in giving Mars
(the reputed father of Eomulus) the same honour, is this
not rather for Eomulus' sake than to honour Mars ?

16. That if the goda had really possessed any regard for righteousness, the
Romans should have received good laws from them, instead of having to
borrow them from, other nations.

Moreover, if the Eomans had been able to receive a rule of
life from their gods, they would not have borrowed Solon's
laws from the Athenians, as they did some years after Eome
was founded ; and yet they did not keep them as they
received them, but endeavoured to improve and amend them,^
iUthough Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized by
Apollo to give laws to the Lacedemonians, the sensible
Eomans did not choose to believe this, and were not induced
to borrow laws from Sparta. Xuma Pompilius, who succeeded

* In the year a.u. 299, three ambassadors were sent from Rome to Athens to
copy Solon's laws, an<l ac(iuire information about the institutions of Greece.
On their return the Decemviri were appointed to draw up a code ; and finally,
after some tra;;ic interruptions, the ccU'brated Twelve TuMos wore accepted as
the fundamental statutes of Roman law {fon* univtrsi puhlici privatitjue jurLt).
Thi'sc were graven on bra^-s, and huug up for public information. Li\-)', iii.
31-34.

LOOK II.] INIQUITIES OF LOME AT HER BEST. G7

Eomulus in the kingdom, is said to have framed some laws,
which, however, were not sufficient for the regulation of civic
affairs. Among these regulations were many pertaining to
religious observances, and yet he is not reported to have
received even these from the gods. AVith resj)ect, then, to
moral evils, evils of life and conduct, — evils which are so
mighty, that, according to the wisest pagans,^ by them states
are ruined while their cities stand uninjured, — their gods
made not the smallest provision for preserving their worship-
pers from these evils, but, on the contrary, took special pains
to increase them, as we have previously endeavoured to prove.

17. Of the rape of the Sabine women, and other iniquities perpetrated in Rome's

'palmiest days.

But possibly we are to find the reason for this neglect of
the Eomans by their gods, in the saying of Sallust, that
" equity and virtue prevailed among the Eomans not more by
force of law^s than of nature." ^ I presume it is to this inborn
equity and goodness of disposition we are to ascribe the rape
of the Sabine women. What, indeed, could be more equit-
able and virtuous, than to carry off by force, as each man was
fit, and without their parents' consent, girls who were strangers
and guests, and who had been decoyed and entrapped by the
pretence of a spectacle ! If the Sabines were wrong to deny
their daughters when the Eomans asked for them, was it not
a greater -SAa^ong in the Eomans to carry them off after that
denial ? The Eomans might more justly have waged war
ac^ainst the neiGfhbourinf]^ nation for havinc^ refused their
daughters in marriage when they first souglit them, than for
having demanded them back when they had stolen them.
War should have been proclaimed at first: it was then that
!Mars should have helped his warlike son, that he might by
force of arms avenge the injury done him by the refusal of
marriage, and might also thus win the women he desired.
There might have been some appearance of " right of war " in
a victor carrying off, in virtue of this right, the virgins who

' Possibly he refers to Plautus' Pcrsa, iv. 4. 11-14.

2 Sallust, Cat. Con. ix. Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarcliiig
the chastity of the Germans : " Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bouoe
leges" {Germ. xix.).

G8 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK II.

had been without any show of right denied him ; whereas
there was no " right of peace " entitling him to carry off those
who were not given to him, and to wage an unjust war with
their justly enraged parents. One happy circumstance was
indeed connected with this act of violence, viz., that though
it was commemorated by the games of the circus, yet even
this did not constitute it a j)recedent in the city or realm of
Eome. If one would find fault with the results of this act, it
must rather be on the ground that the Romans made Romulus
a god in spite of his perpetrating this iniquity; for one cannot
reproach them with making this deed any kind of precedent
for the rape of women.

Again, I presume it was due to this natural equity and
virtue, that after the expulsion of King Tarquin, whose son had
violated Lucretia, Junius Brutus the consul forced Lucius
Tarquinius CoUatinus, Lucretia's husband and his own col-
league, a good and innocent man, to resign his office and go
into banishment, on the one sole charge that he was of the
name and blood of the Tarquins. This injustice was per-
petrated with the approval, or at least connivance, of the
people, who had themselves raised to the consular office both
CoUatinus and Brutus. Another instance of this equity and
virtue is found in their treatment of Marcus Camillus. This
eminent man, after he had rapidly conquered the Veians, at
that time the most formidable of Rome's enemies, and who
had maintained a ten years' war, in which the Roman army had
suff(jred the usual calamities attendant on bad generalship,
after he had restored security to Rcome, which had begun to
tremble for its safety, and after he had taken the wealthiest
city of the enemy, had charges brought against him by the
malice of those that envied his success, and by the insolence
of the tribunes of the people ; and seeing that the city bore
liim no gratitude for preserving it, and that he would
certainly be condemned, ho went into exile, and even in his
absence was fined 10,000 asses. Shortly after, however, his
ungrateful country had again to seek his protection from the
Gauls. But I cannot now mention all the shameful and
iniquitous acts with whicli Rome was agitated, when the
aristocracy attempted to subject the people, and the people
resented their encroachments, and the advocates of either party

BOOK IT.] TESTIMONY OF SALLUST. G9

were actuated rather by the love of victory than by any equi-
table or virtuous consideration.

18. What the history of Sallust reveals regarding the life of the Romans, either
when straitened by anxiety or relaxed in security.

I will therefore pause, and adduce the testimony of Sallust
himself, whose words in praise of the Romans (that " equity
and virtue prevailed among them not more by force of laws
than of nature ") have given occasion to this discussion. He
was referring to that period immediately after the expulsion
of the kings, in which the city became great in an incredibly
short space of time. And yet this same writer acknowledges
in the first book of his history, in the very exordium of his
work, that even at that time, when a very brief interval
had elapsed after the government had passed from kings to
consuls, the more powerful men began to act unjustly, and
occasioned the defection of the people from the patricians,
and other disorders in the city. For after Sallust had stated
that the Eomans enjoyed greater harmony and a purer state
of society between the second and third Punic wars than at
any other time, and that the cause of this was not their love
of good order, but their fear lest the peace they had with
Carthage might be broken (this also, as we mentioned, ISTasica
contemplated when he opposed the destruction of Carthage,
for he supposed that fear w^ould tend to repress wickedness,
and to preserve w^holesome ways of living), he then goes on to
say : " Yet, after the destruction of Carthage, discord, avarice,
ambition, and the other vices which are commonly generated
by prosperity, more than ever increased." If they " increased,"
and that " more than ever," then already they had appeared,
and had been increasing. And so Sallust adds this reason for
what he said. "For," he says, "the oppressive measures of
the powerful, and the consequent secessions of the plebs from
the patricians, and other civil dissensions, had existed from
the first, and affairs were administered with equity and well-
tempered justice for no longer a period than the short time
after the expulsion of the kings, while the city was occupied
with the serious Tuscan war and Tarquin's vengeance." You
see how, even in that brief period after the expulsion of the
kings, fear, he acknowledges, was the cause of the interval of

70 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK II.

equity and good order. They were afraid, in fact, of the war
which Tarf[iiin waged against tliem, after lie had been driven
from the tlirune and the city, and liad allied himself with the
Tuscans. But observe what he adds : " After that, the patri-
cians treated the people as their slaves, ordering them to be
scourged or beheaded just as the kings had done, driving
them from their holdings, and harshly tyrannizing over those
who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by
these oppressive measures, and most of all by exorbitant
usury, and obliged to contribute both money and personal
service to the constant wars, at length took arms, and seceded
to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus obtained for
themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the
second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord
and strife." You see what kind of men the Eomans were,
even so early as a few years after the expulsion of the kings ;
and it is of these men he says, that " equity and virtue pre-
vailed among them not more by force of law than of nature."

Now, if these were the days in which the Roman republic
shows ftiirest and best, what are we to say or think of the
succeeding age, when, to use the words of the same historian,
" changing little by little from the fair and virtuous city it
was, it became utterly wicked and dissolute V* This was, as he
mentions, after the destruction of Carthage. Sallust's brief
sum and sketch of this period may be read in his own liistory,
in which he shows how the profligate manners which were
propagated by prosperity resulted at last even in civil wars.
He says : " And from this time the primitive manners, instead
of undergoing an insensible alteration as hitherto they had
done, were swept away as by a torrent : the young men were
so depraved by luxury and avarice, that it may justly be said
that no father had a son who could either preserve his own
patrimony, or keep his hands off other men's." Sallust
adds a nmii])er of particulars about the vices of Sylla, and
the debased condition f»f the republic in general; and other
writers make similar tibservations. though in much less strik-
ing language.

However, 1 suppose you now see, or at least any one who
gives his attention has the means of seeing, in what a sink

BOOK II.] EOMAN COEEUPTION OLDER THAN CHRISTIANITY. Vl

of iniquity that city was plunged before the advent of our
heavenly King. For these things happened not only before
Christ had begun to teach, but before He was even born of
the Virgin. If, then, they dare not impute to their gods the
grievous evils of those former times, more tolerable before the
destruction of Carthage, but intolerable and dreadful after it,
although it was the gods who by their malign craft instilled
into the minds of men the conceptions from which such
dreadful vices branched out on all sides, why do they impute
these present calamities to Christ, who teaches life-giving truth,
and forbids us to worship false and deceitful gods, and who,
abominating and condemning with His divine authority those
wicked and hurtful lusts of men, gradually withdraws His
own people from a world that is corrupted by these vices,
and is falling into ruins, to make of them an eternal city,
whose glory rests not on the acclamations of vanity, but on
the judgment of truth ?

19. Of the corruption loliich had grown upon the Roman republic he/ore Christ
abolished the worship of the gods.

Here, then, is this Eoman republic, "which has changed
little by little from the fair and virtuous city it was, and has
become utterly wicked and dissolute." It is not I who am
the first to say tliis, but their own authors, from whom we
learned it for a fee, and who wrote it long before the coming
of Christ. You see how, before the coming of Christ, and
after the destruction of Carthage, "the primitive manners,
instead of undergoing insensible alteration, as hitherto they had
done, were swept away as by a torrent; and how depraved
by luxury and avarice the youth were." Let them now, on
their part, read to us any laws given by their gods to the
Roman people, and directed against luxury and avarice. And
would that they had only been silent on the subjects of
chastity and modesty, and had not demanded from the people
indecent and shameful practices, to which they lent a per-
nicious patronage by their so-called divinity. Let them
read our commandments in the Prophets, Gospels, Acts of
the Apostles, or Epistles ; let them peruse the large number
of precepts against avarice and luxury which are everywhere
read to the congregations that meet for this purpose, and

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK n.

which strike tlie ear, not with the uncertain sound of a pliilo-
sophical discussion, but with the tliunder of God's own oracle
pealing from the clouds. And yet they do not impute to their
gods the luxury and avarice, the cruel and dissolute manners,
that had rendered the republic utterly wicked and corrupt,
even before the coming of Christ; but whatever affliction
their pride and effeminacy have exposed them to in these
latter days, they furiously impute to our religion. If the
kings of the earth and all their subjects, if all princes and
judges of the earth, if young men and maidens, old and
young, every age, and both sexes ; if they whom the Baptist
addressed, the publicans and the soldiers, were all together
to hearken to and observe the precepts of the Christian
religion regarding a just and virtuous life, then should the
republic adorn the whole earth with its own felicity, and
attain in life everlasting to the pinnacle of kingly glory.
But because this man listens, and that man scoffs, and most
are enamoured of the blandishments of vice rather than the
wholesome severity of virtue, the people of Christ, whatever
be their condition — wdiether they be kings, princes, judges,
soldiers, or provincials, rich or poor, bond or free, male or
female — are enjoined to endure this earthly republic, wicked
and dissolute as it is, that so they may by tliis endurance
win for themselves an eminent place in that most holy and
august assembly of angels and republic of heaven, in which
the will of God is the law.

20. Of the hind of happiness and Vfe truly delifjhted in by those xcho inveigh
against the Christian religion.

But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in
imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise con-
cerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious.
Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish
and abound in resources ; let it be glorious by its victories, or
still better, secure in peace ; and what mattei-s it to us ?
This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his
wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that tlie
powerful may sul>ject the weak for their own purposes. Let
the poor court the ricii for a living, and tliat under their pro-
tection they may enjoy a sluggish tmiKpiillity ; and let the

BOOK II.] GODS AND PEOPLE ALIKE INDIFFERENT TO VIRTUE. 73

rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their_
pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their
interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no
severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings
estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the
servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to
the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their posses-
sions and purveyors of their pleasures ; not with a hearty
reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take
cognizance rather of the injury done to another man's pro-
perty, than of that done to one's own person. If a man be a
nuisance to his neighbour, or injure his property, family, or
person, let him be actionable ; but in his own affairs let every
one with impunity do what he will in company with his own
family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be
a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who
wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor
to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses
of the largest and most ornate description : in these let there
be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one
who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit,^ dissi-
pate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers,
the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre ; let a succession of
the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a
perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any,
let him be branded as a public enemy ; and if any attempt to
modify or put an end to it, let him be silenced, banished, put
an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure
for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when
once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish ; let
them demand whatever games they please, from or with their
own worshippers ; only let them secure that such felicity be
not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind. AVliat
sane man would compare a republic such as this, I will not
say to the Eoman empire, but to the palace of Sardanapalus,
the ancient king who was so abandoned to pleasures, that he
caused it to be inscribed on his tomb, that now that he was

1 The same collocation of words is used by Cicero with reference to the well-
known mode of renewing the appetite in use among the Romans.

74 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK U.

dead, he possessed only those tilings Mliidi he had swallowed
and consinned by his appetites while alive ? If these men
had such a king as this, who, wliile self-indulgent, should lay
no severe restraint on them, they would more enthusiastically
consecrate to him a temple and a llamen than the ancient
Romans did to Piomulus.

21. Cicero's opinion of the Roman republic.

But if our adversaries do not care how foully and disgrace-
fully the Iioman republic be stained by corrupt practices, so
long only as it holds together and continues in being, and
if they therefore pooh-pooh the testimony of Sallust to its
" utterly wicked and profligate" condition, what will they
make of Cicero's statement, that even in his time it had
become entirely extinct, and that there remained extant no
Iioman republic at all ? He introduces Scipio (the Scipio
who had destroyed Carthage) discussing the republic, at a time
when already there were presentiments of its speedy ruin by
that corruption which Sallust describes. In fact, at the time
when the discussion took place, one of the Gracchi, who,
according to Sallust, was the first great instigator of seditions,
had already been put to death. His death, indeed, is men-
tioned in the same book. Xow Scipio, in the end of the
second book, says : " As, among the different sounds which pro-
ceed from lyres, flutes, and the human voice, there must be
maintained a certain harmony which a cultivated ear cannot
endure to hear disturbed or jarring, but which may be elicited
in full and absolute concord by the modulation even of voices
very unlike one another ; so, where reason is allowed to
modulate the diverse elements of the state, there is obtained a
perfect concord from the upper, lower, and middle classes as
from various sounds ; and what musicians call harmony in
.singing, is concord in matters of state, which is the strictest
bond and best security of any republic, and which by no
ingenuity can be retained where justice has become extinct."
Then, when he had expatiated somewhat more fully, and had
more copiously illustrated the benefits of its presence and the
ruinous effects of its absence upon a state, Pilus, one of the
company presi-nt at the discussion, struck in and demanded
that the question should be more thoroughly sifted, and that

BOOK II.] CICEPtO'S OPINION OF THE REPUBLIC. 75

the subject of justice should be freely discussed for the sake
of ascertaining what truth there was in the maxim which was
then becoming daily more current, that " the republic cannot
be governed without injustice." Scipio expressed his willing-
ness to have this maxim discussed and sifted, and gave it as
his opinion that it was baseless, and that no progress could be
made in discussing the republic unless it was established, not
only that this maxim, that " the republic cannot be governed
without injustice," was false, but also that the truth is, that it
cannot be governed without the most absolute justice. And
the discussion of this question, being deferred till the next
day, is carried on in the third book with great animation.
For Pilus himself undertook to defend the position that the
republic cannot be governed without injustice, at the same
time being at special pains to clear himself of any real parti-
cipation in that opinion. He advocated with great keenness
the cause of injustice against justice, and endeavoured by
plausible reasons and examples to demonstrate that the former
is beneficial, the latter useless, to the republic. Then, at the
request of the company, L?elius attempted to defend justice,
and strained every nerve to prove that nothing is so hurtful
to a state as injustice ; and that without justice a repubhc
can neither be governed, nor even continue to exist.

When this question has been handled to the satisfaction of
the company, Scipio reverts to the original thread of discourse,
and repeats with commendation his own brief definition of a
republic, that it is the weal of the people. " The people" he
defines as being not every assemblage or mob, but an assem-
blage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by
a community of interests. Then he shows the use of defini-
tion in debate ; and from these definitions of his own he
gathers that a republic, or " weal of the people," then exists
only when it is well and justly governed, whether by a
monarch, or an aristocracy, or by the whole people. But
when the monarch is unjust, or, as the Greeks say, a tyrant ;
or the aristocrats are unjust, and form a faction ; or the
people themselves are unjust, and become, as Scipio for want
of a better name calls them, themselves the tyrant, then the
republic is not only blemished (as had been proved the day

76 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

before), but by legitimate deduction from those definitions, it
altogether ceases to be. For it could not be the people's weal
■svhen a tyrant factiously lorded it over the state ; neither
would the people be any longLT a people if it were unjust,
since it would no longer answer the definition of a people —
" an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of
law, and by a community of interests."

When, therefore, the Pioman republic was such as Sallust
described it, it was not "utterly wicked and profligate," as
he says, but had altogether ceased to exist, if we are to admit
the reasoning of that debate maintained on the subject of
the republic by its best representatives. Tully himself, too,
speaking not in the person of Scipio or any one else, but
Tittering his own sentiments, uses the following language in
the beginning of the fiftli book, after quoting a line from the
poet Ennius, in which he said, " Eome's severe morality and
her citizens are her safeguard." " This verse," says Cicero,
" seems to me to have all the sententious truthfulness of an
oracle. For neither would the citizens have availed -svithout
the morality of the community, nor would the morality of the
commons without outstanding men have availed either to
establish or so long to maintain in vigour so grand a republic
with so wide and just an empire. Accordingly, before our
day, the hereditary usages formed our foremost men, and they
on their part retained the usages and institutions of their
fathers. But our age, receiving the republic as a chcf-cCocuvre
of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not
merely neglected to restore the colours of the original, but has
not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general
outline and most outstanding features. For what survives
of that primitive morality which the poet called Eome's safe-
guard ? It is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from prac-
tising it, one does not even know it. And of the citizens what
shall I say ? Morality has perished through poverty of great
men ; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason,
but for the guilt of whicli we must answer as criminals charged
with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by
any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and
have long since lost the reality."

BOOK II.] DECAY OF ITS ANCIENT VIRTUE. V7

This is the confession of Cicero, long indeed after the death
of Africanus, whom he introduced as an interlocutor in his
work De RcpuUica, but still before the coming of Christ. Yet,
if the disasters he bewails had been lamented after the Chris-
tian religion had been diffused, and had begun to prevail, is
there a man of our adversaries who would not have thought
tliat they were to be imputed to the Christians ? Why, then,
did their gods not take steps then to prevent the decay and
extinction of that republic, over the loss of which Cicero, long
before Christ had come in the flesh, sings so lugubrious a
dirge ? Its admirers have need to inquire whether, even in
the days of primitive men and morals, true justice flourished
in it ; or was it not perhaps even then, to use the casual ex-
pression of Cicero, rather a coloured painting than the living
reality ? But, if God will, we shall consider this elsewhere.
For I mean in its own place to show that — according to the
definitions in which Cicero himself, using Scipio as his mouth-
piece, briefly propounded what a republic is, and what a
people is, and according to many testimonies, both of his own
lips and of those who took part in that same debate — Eome
never was a republic, because true justice had never a place
in it. But accepting the more feasible definitions of a republic,
I grant there was a republic of a certain kind, and certainly
much better administered by the more ancient Eomans than
by their modern representatives. But the fact is, true justice
has no existence save in that republic whose founder and
ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic ;
and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people's weal. But
if perchance this name, which has become familiar in other
connections, be considered alien to our common parlance, we
may at all events say that in this city is true justice ; the city
of which Holy Scripture says, " Glorious things are said of
thee, 0 city of God."

22. That the Roman gods never took any steps to prevent the republic from being
ruined by immorality.

But what is relevant to the present question is this, that
however admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is,
it is certain that by the testimony of their own most learned

"78 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK II.

writers it had become, long before the coming of Christ,
utterly wicked and dissolute, and indeed had no existence,
but had been destroyed by profligacy. To prevent this, surely
these guardian gods ought to have given precepts of morals
and a rule of life to the people by whom they were wor-
shipped in so many temples, with so gi'eat a variety of priests
and sacrifices, with such numberless and diverse rites, so
many festal solemnities, so many celebrations of magnificent
games. But in all this the demons only looked after tlieir
own interest, and cared not at all how their worshippers lived,
or rather were at pains to induce them to lead an abandoned
life, so long as they paid these tributes to their honour, and
regarded them with fear. If any one denies this, let him
produce, let him point to, let him read the laws which the
gods had given against sedition, and which the Gracchi trans-
gressed when they threw everything into confusion ; or those
Marius, and Cinna, and Carbo broke when they involved their
country in civil wars, most iniquitous and unjustifiable in their
causes, cruelly conducted, and yet more cruelly terminated ; or
those which Sylla scorned, whose life, character, and deeds, as
described by Sallust and other historians, are the abhorrence
of all mankind. Who will deny that at that time the
republic had become extinct ?

I'ossibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence
of the gods, that they abandoned the city on account of the
profligacy of the citizens, according to the lines of Virgil :

"Gone from each fiine, each sacred shrine,
Are those who made this realm divine." '

Lut, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the
Christian religion, as if it were that which gave ollcnce to
the gods and caused them to abandon Home, since the Eoman
immorality had long ago driven from the altars of the city a
cloud of little gods, like as many flies. And yet where was
this host of divinities, when, long before the corruption of tlie
])rimitive morality, Home was taken and burnt by tlie Gauls ?
Perhaps they were present, Ijut asleep ? For at that time tlie
whole city fell into the hands of the enemy, with the single
exception of the Capitnline hill ; and this too would have been
> JiJiieul, a 351-2.

BOOK IL] this life IS NOT RULED BY THE GODS. 79

taken, had not — the watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods !
And this gave occasion to the festival of the goose, in which
Eome sank nearly to the superstition of the Egyptians, who
worship beasts and birds. But of these adventitious evils
which are inflicted by hostile armies or by some disaster, and
which attach rather to the body than the soul, I am not
meanwhile disputing. At present I speak of the decay of
morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost its brilliant
hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept away as
by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous
ruin, that though the houses and walls remained standing,
the leading writers do not scruple to say that the republic
was destroyed. Now, the departure of the gods " from each
fane, each sacred shrine," and their abandonment of the city
to destruction, was an act of justice, if their laws inculcating
justice and a moral life had been held in contempt by that
city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who declined
to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose
corrupt life they had done nothing to reform ?

23. That the vicissitudes of this life are dependent not on the favour or hostility
of demons, hut on the will of the true God.

But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the
fulfilment of men's desires, instead of authoritatively bridling
them ? For Marius, a low-born and self-made man, who ruth-
lessly provoked and conducted civil wars, was so effectually
aided by them, that he was seven times consul, and died
full of years in his seventh consulship, escaping the hands of
Sylla, who immediately afterwards came into powder. Why,
then, did they not also aid him, so as to restrain him from so
many enormities ? For if it is said that the gods had no
hand in his success, this is no trivial admission, that a man
can attain the dearly coveted felicity of this life even though
his own gods be not propitious ; that men can be loaded with
the gifts of fortune as Marius was, can enjoy health, power,
wealth, honours, dignity, length of days, though the gods be
hostile to him ; and that, on the other hand, men can be tor-
mented as Eegulus was, with captivity, bondage, destitution,
watchings, pain, and cruel death, though the gods be liis friends.

80 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK II.

To concede this is to make a compendious confession that the
gods are useless, and their worship superfluous. If the gods
have taught the people rather what goes clean counter to the
virtues of the soul, and that integrity of life which meets a
reward after death ; if even in respect of temporal and transitory-
blessings they neither hurt those whom they hate nor profit
whom they love, why are they worshipped, why are they invoked
with such eager homage ? Why do men murmur in difficult
and sad emergencies, as if the gods had retired in anger ? and
why, on tlieir account, is the Christian religion injured by the
most unworthy calumnies ? If in temporal matters they have
power either for good or for evil, why did they stand by Marius,
the worst of Home's citizens, and abandon Eegulus, the best ?
Does this not prove themselves to be most unjust and wicked ?
And even if it be supposed that for this very reason they are
the rather to be feared and worshipped, this is a mistake ; for
we do not read that Eegulus worshipped them less assiduously
than Marius. Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is to
be chosen, on the ground that the gods are supposed to have
favoured ^Marius more than Eegulus. For Metellus, the
most highly esteemed of all the Eomans, who had five sons
in the consulship, was prosperous even in this life ; and
Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty and defeated
in the war liis own guilt had aroused, lived and perished
miserably. Eeal and secure felicity is the peculiar possession
of those who worship that God by whom alone it can be
conferred.

It is thus a]~>parent, that when the republic was being
destroyed by profligate manners, its gods did nothing to
hinder its destruction by the direction or conection of its
manners, but ratlicr accelerated its destruction by increasing
the demoralization and corruption that already existed. They
need not pretend tliat tlieir goodness was shocked by the
iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger. For
they were tliere, sure enough ; they are detected, conWcted :
they were equally unable to break sdence so as to guide
others, and to keep silence so as to conceal themselves. I
do not dwell on the fact that the inhabitants of Minturme
took pity on Marius, and commended him to the goddess

BOOK IL] SYLLA encouraged BY THE GODS. 81

Marica in her grove, that she might give him success in
all things, and that from the abyss of despair in which he
then lay he forthwith returned unhurt to Eome, and entered
the city the ruthless leader of a ruthless army ; and they
who wish to know how bloody was his victory, how unlike a
citizen, and how much more relentlessly than any foreign foe
he acted, let them read the histories. But this, as I said, I
do not dwell upon ; nor do I attribute the bloody bliss of
Marius to, I know not what Minturnian goddess [Marica], but
rather to the secret providence of God, that the mouths of our
adversaries might be shut, and that they who are not led by
passion, but by prudent consideration of events, might be de-
livered from error. And even if the demons have any power
in these matters, they have only that power which the secret
decree of the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may
not set too great store by earthly prosperity, seeing it is often-
times vouchsafed even to wicked men like Marius ; and that
we may not, on the other hand, regard it as an evil, since
we see that many good and pious w^orshippers of the one true
God are, in spite of the demons, pre-eminently successful ;
and, finally, that we may not suppose that these unclean
spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the sake of
earthly blessings or calamities : for as wicked men on earth
cannot do all they would, so neither can these demons, but
only in so far as they are permitted by the decree of Him
w^hose judgments are fully comprehensible, justly reprehen-
sible by none.

24. Of the deeds of Sylla, in wJilch the demons boasted that he had their help.

It is certain that Sylla — whose rule was so cruel, that, in
comparison with it, the preceding state of things which he
came to avenge was regretted — when first he advanced towards
Eome to give battle to Marius, found the auspices so favour-
able when he sacrificed, that, according to Livy's account, the
augur Postumius expressed his willingness to lose his head if
Sylla did not, with the help of the gods, accomplish what he
designed. The gods, you see, had not departed from " every
fane and sacred shrine," since they were still predicting the
issue of these affairs, and yet were taking no steps to correct
Sylla himself. Their presages promised him great prosperity, but

VOL. I. F

82 THE CITY OF GOD. [bOOK II.

no threatenings of theirs subdued his evil passions. And tlien,
when he was in Asia conducting tlie war against Mithridates,
a message from Jupiter was delivered to him by Lucius Titius,
to the effect that he would conquer Mithridates ; and so it came
to pass. And afterwards, when he was meditating a return
to Kome for the purpose of avenging in the blood of the
citizens injuries done to himself and his friends, a second
message from Jupiter was delivered to him by a soldier of
the sixth legion, to the effect that it was he who had predicted
the victory over Mithridates, and that now he promised to give
him power to recover the republic from his enemies, though
with great bloodshed. Sylla at once inquired of the soldier
what form had appeared to him ; and, on his reply, recognised
that it was the same as Jupiter had formerly employed to
convey to him the assurance regarding the victory over Mithri-
dates. How, then, can the gods be justified in this matter
for the care they took to predict tliese shadowy successes, and
for their negligence in correcting Sylla, and restraining him
from stirring up a civil war so lamentable and atrocious, that it
not merely disfigured, but extinguished, the republic ? The
truth is, as I -have often said, and as Scripture informs ns, and
as the facts themselves sufficiently indicate, the demons are
found to look after their own ends only, tliat they may be
regarded and worshipped as gods, and that men may be in-
duced to offer to them a worship which associates them with
their crimes, and involves them in one common wickedness
and judgment of God.

Afterwards, when Sylla had come to Tarentum, and had
sacrificed there, he saw. on the head of the victim's liver the
likeness of a golden crown. Thereupon the same soothsayer
Postumius interpreted this to signify a signal victory, and
ordered that he only should eat of the entrails. A little
afterwards, the slave of a certain Lucius Pontius cried out, " I
am r>ellona's messenger ; the victory is yours, Sylla !" Then
he added that tlie Capitol should be burned. As soon as he
liad uttered this prediction lie left the camp, but returned the
following day more excited than ever, and shouted, " The Capitol
is fired ! " And fired indeed it was. This it was easy for a
demon both to foresee and quickly to announce. But observe,

BOOK II.] THE GODS INCITE MEN TO WICKEDNESS. 83

as relevant to our subject, what kind of gods they are under
whom these men desire to live, who blaspheme the Saviour
that delivers the wills of the faithful from the dominion of
devils. The man cried out in prophetic rapture, " The victory
is yours, Sylla ! " And to certify that he spoke by a divine
spirit, he predicted also an event which was shortly to happen,
and which indeed did fall out, in a place from which he in
whom this spirit was speaking was far distant. But he never
cried, Forbear thy villanies, Sylla ! — the villanies which were
committed at Eome by that victor to whom a golden crown
on the calf's liver had been shown as the divine evidence of
his victory. If such signs as this were customarily sent by
just gods, and not by wicked demons, then certainly the en-
trails he consulted should rather have given Sylla intimation
of the cruel disasters that were to befall the city and himself.
For that victory was not so conducive to his exaltation to
power, as it was fatal to his ambition ; for by it he became
so insatiable in his desires, and was rendered so arrogant and
reckless by prosperity, that he may be said rather to have
inflicted a moral destruction on himself than corporal de-
struction on his enemies. But these truly woful and deplor-
able calamities the gods gave him no previous hint of, neither
by entrails, augury, dream, nor prediction. For they feared
his amendment more than his defeat. Yea, they took good
care that this glorious conqueror of his own fellow-citizens
should be conquered and led captive by his own infamous
vices, and should thus be the more submissive slave of the
demons themselves.

25. How powerfully the evil spirits incite men to wicked actions, by giving them
the quasi-divine authority of their example.

ISTow, who does not hereby comprehend, — unless he has
preferred to imitate such gods rather than by divine grace to
withdraw himself from their fellowship, — who does not see
how eagerly these evil spirits strive by their example to lend,
as it were, divine authority to crime ? Is not this proved by
the fact that they were seen in a wide plain in Campania re-
hearsing among themselves the battle which shortly after took
place there with great bloodshed between the armies of Eome ?
For at first there were heard loud crashing noises, and after-

84 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

wards many reported that they had seen for some days to-
gether two armies engaged. And when tliis battle ceased, they
found the ground all indented with just such footprints of
men and horses as a great conflict would leave. If, then, the
deities were veritably fighting with one another, the civil wars
of men are sufficiently justified ; yet, by the way, let it be ob-
served that such pugnacious gods must be very wicked or very
wretched. If, however, it was but a sham-fight, what did
they intend by this, but that the civil wars of the Eomans
should seem no wickedness, l)ut an imitation of the gods ?
For already the civil wars had begun ; and before this, some
lamentable battles and execrable massacres had occurred.
Already many had been moved by the story of the soldier,
who, on stripping the spoils of his slain foe, recognised in the
stripped corpse his own brother, and, with deep curses on civil
wars, slew himself there and then on his brother's body. To
disguise the bitterness of such tragedies, and kindle increasing
ardour in this monstrous warfare, these malign demons, who
were reputed and worshipped as gods, fell upon this plan of
revealing themselves in a state of civil war, that no com-
punction for fellow-citizens might cause the Eomans to shrink
from such battles, but that the human criminality might be
justified by the divine example. By a like craft, too, did these
evil spirits command that scenic entertainments, of which I
have ali'cady spoken, should be instituted and dedicated to
them. And in these entertainments the poetical compositions
and actions of the drama ascribed such iniquities to the
gods, that every one might safely imitate them, whether he
believed the gods had actually done such things, or, not be-
lieving this, yet perceived that they most eagerly desired to be
represented as having done them. And that no one might
su})pose, tliat in representing the gods as fighting with one
anotlier, the poets had slandered them, and imputed to them
unwortliy actions, tlie gods tliemselves, to complete the de-
ception, confirmed the compositions of the poets by exhibiting
their own battles to the eyes of men, not only through actions
in the tlieatres, but in their own persons on the actual field.

We have been forced to bring forward tliese facts, because
tlicir authors have not scrupled to say and to write that the

BOOK II.] WHAT THEIR SECRET INSTRUCTIONS AMOUNT TO. 85

Eoman republic had already been ruined by the depraved
moral habits of the citizens, and had ceased to exist before the
advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this ruin they do not
impute to their own gods, though they impute to our Christ
the evils of this life, which cannot ruin good men, be they
alive or dead. And this they do, though our Christ has
issued so many precepts inculcating virtue and restraining
vice ; while their own gods have done nothing whatever to
preserve that republic that served them, and to restrain it
from ruin by such precepts, but have rather hastened its
destruction, by corrupting its morality through their pestilent
example. No one, I fancy, will now be bold enough to say
that the republic was then ruined because of the departure
of the gods " from each fane, each sacred shrine," as if they
were the friends of virtue, and were offended by the vices of
men. 'No, there are too many presages from entrails, auguries,
soothsayings, whereby they boastingly proclaimed themselves
prescient of future events and controllers of the fortune of
war, — all which prove them to have been present. And had
they been indeed absent, the Eomans would never in these
civil wars have been so far transported by their own passions
as they were by the instigations of these gods.

2G. That the demons gave in secret certain obscure instructions in morals, while
in public their own solemnities inculcated all wickedness.

Seeing that this is so, — seeing that the filthy and cruel
deeds, the disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether
real or feigned, were at their own request published, and were
consecrated, and dedicated in their honour as sacred and
stated solemnities ; seeing they vowed vengeance on those who
refused to exhibit them to the eyes of all, that they might be
proposed as deeds worthy of imitation, why is it that these
same demons, who, by taking pleasure in such obscenities, ac-
knowledge themselves to be unclean spirits, and by delighting
in their own villanies and iniquities, real or imaginary, and by
requesting from the immodest, and extorting from the modest,
the celebration of these licentious acts, proclaim themselves
instigators to a criminal and lewd life ; — why, I ask, are they
represented as giving some good moral precepts to a few of
their own elect, initiated in the secrecy of their shrines ? If

80 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK II.

it be so, this very thing only serves further to demonstrate the
malicious craft of these pestilent spirits. For so great is the
infhience of probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all
men, are moved by the praise of these virtues ; nor is any
man so depraved by vice, but he hath some feeling of honour
left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed
himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light,^ he could not
compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold
impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamour; in
private, a feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to
a few : an open stage is provided for shameful things, but on
the praiseworthy the curtain falls : grace hides, disgrace flaunts :
a wicked deed draws an overflowing house, a virtuous speech
finds scarce a hearer, as though purity were to be blushed at,
impurity boasted of Where else can such confusion reign,
but in devils' temples ? Where, but in the haunts of deceit ?
For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous,
who are few in number ; the wicked examples are exhibited
to encourage the vicious, who are countless.

Wliere and when those initiated in the mysteries of Calestis
received any good instructions, we know not. What we do
know is, that before her shrine, in which her image is set, and
amidst a vast crowd gathering from all quarters, and standing
closely packed together, we were intensely interested spectators
of the games which were going on, and saw, as we pleased to
turn the eye, on this side a grand display of harlots, on the
other the virgin goddess: we saw this virgin worshipped with
prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no shamefaced
mimes, no actress overburdened with modesty : all that the
obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were
plainly shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the
matron who witnessed the spectacle returned home from the
temple a wiser woman. Some, indeed, of the more prudent
women turned their faces from the immodest movements of
the players, and learned the art of wickedness by a furtive
regard. Fur they were restrained, by the modest demeanour
due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest gestures; but
much mure were they restrained from condemning with chaste

' 2 Cor. xi. H.

BOOK II.] DEMORALIZING INFLUENCE OF OBSCENE TLAYS. 87

heart the sacred rites of her whom they adored. And yet
this licentiousness — which, if practised in one's home, could only
be done there in secret — was practised as a public lesson in the
temple; and if any modesty remained in men, it was occupied
in marvelling that wickedness which men could not unre-
strainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of
the gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the
anger of the gods. What spirit can that be, which by a hidden
inspiration stirs men's corruption, and goads them to adultery,
and feeds on the full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that
finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples
images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of vices ;
that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the
few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy,
to gain possession of the millions who are wicked ?

27. That the ohscenities of those plays which the Romans consecrated in order
to propitiate their gods, contributed largely to the overthrow of public
order.

Cicero, a weighty man, and a philosopher in his way, when
about to be made edile, wished the citizens to understand^
that, among the other duties of his magistracy, he must pro-
pitiate Flora by the celebration of games. And these games
are reckoned devout in proportion to their lewdness. In
another place,^ and when he was now consul, and the state in
great peril, he says that games had been celebrated for ten
days together, and that nothing had been omitted which could
pacify the gods : as if it had not been more satisfactory to irritate
the gods by temperance, than to pacify them by debauchery;
and to provoke their hate by honest living, than soothe it by
such unseemly grossness. For no matter how cruel was the
ferocity of those men who were threatening the state, and on
whose account the gods were being propitiated : it could not
have been more hurtful than the alliance of gods who were
won with the foulest vices. To avert the danger which
threatened men's bodies, the gods were conciliated in a fashion
that drove virtue from their spirits ; and the gods did not
enrol themselves as defenders of the battlements against the
besiegers, until they had first stormed and sacked the morality
1 Cicero, C. Verrem, vi. 8. - Ciceio, C. CatiUnam, iiL 8.

88 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IL

of the citizens. This propitiation of such divinities, — a propi-
tiation so wanton, so impure, so immodest, so "svicked, so filthy,
whose actors the innate and praiseworthy virtue of the Eomans
disabled from civic honours, erased from their tribe, recognised
as polluted and made infamous ; — this propitiation, I say, so
foul, so detestable, and alien from every religious feeling, these
fabulous and ensnaring accounts of the criminal actions of the
gods, these scandalous actions which they either shamefully
and wickedly committed, or more shamefully and wickedly
feigned, all this the whole city learned in public both by the
w^ords and gestures of the actors. They saw that the gods
delighted in the commission of these things, and therefore
believed tliat they wished them not only to be exhibited to
them, but to be imitated by themselves. But as for that good
and honest instruction which they speak of, it was given in
such secrecy, and to so few^ (if indeed given at all), that they
seemed rather to fear it might be divulged, than that it might
not be practised.

28. Tliat the Christian religion is health-giving.

Tliey, then, are but abandoned and ungrateful wretches, in
deep and fast bondage to that malign spirit, wlio complain and
murmur that men are rescued by the name of Christ from the
hellish thraldom of these unclean spirits, and from a participa-
tion in their punishment, and are brought out of the night of
pestilential ungodliness into the light of most healthful piety.
(July such men could murmur that the masses flock to the
churches and their chaste acts of worship, where a seemly
separation of the sexes is observed ; where they learn how they
may so spend this earthly life, as to merit a blessed eternity
hereafter ; where Holy Scripture and instruction in righteous-
ness are proclaimed from a raised platform in presence of all,
that both they who do the w^ord may hear to their salvation,
and they who do it not may hear to judgment. And though
some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is
either qu(»nched by a sudden change, or is restrained tlirough
fear or shame. For no filtliy and wicked action is there set
forth to be gazed at or to be imitated ; but either tlie precepts
of the true God are roconinKMidod, His miracles naiTated, His
gifts praised, or His benefits imx)lored.

BOOK II.] APPEAL TO THE ROMANS. 89

29. A}i exhortation to the Romans to renounce paganism.

This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, 0 admir-
able Eoman race, — the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of
Itegulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish
from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there
is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it
purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and
punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise
may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no
error. For of popular glory you have had your share ; but by
the secret providence of God, the true religion was not offered
to your choice. Awake, it is now day; as you have already
awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and
sufferings for the true faith we glory : for they, contending
on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by
bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours with
their blood ; to which country we invite you, and exhort you
to add yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city,
which also has a sanctuary^ of its own in the true remission of
sins. Do not listen to those des^enerate sons of thine who
slander Christ and Christians, and impute to them these dis-
astrous times, though they desire times in which they may
enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life.
Such has never been Eome's ambition even in regard to her
earthly country. Lay hold now on the celestial country,
which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and
for ever. For there shalt thou find no vestal fire, no Capitoline
stone, but the one true God

" No date, no goal will here ordain :
But grant an endless, boundless reign. "-

No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods ; abjure
them rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty.
Gods they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal
happiness will be a sore punishment. Juno, from whom you
deduce your origin according to the flesh, did not so bitterly
grudge Eome's citadels to the Trojans, as these devils whom
yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of
mankind. And thou thyself hast in no wavering voice passed

1 Alluding to the sanctuary given to all who fled to Fiome in its early days.

2 Viri^il, uEneid, i. 278.

90 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK II.

judgment on them, when thou didst pacify them with games,
and yet didst account as infamous the men by whom the plays
were acted. Suffer us, then, to assert tliy freedom against the
unclean spirits who had imposed on thy neck the yoke of
celebrating their own shame and filthiness. The actors of
these divine crimes thou hast removed from offices of honour ;
supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those
gods who delight in their crimes, — a most disgraceful thing if
the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious invention
if the crimes are feigned. Well done, in that thou hast spon-
taneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors
and players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be
propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man. How,
then, can . you believe that gods who take pleasure in such
lewd X-)lays, belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven,
when the men by whom these plays are acted are by your-
selves refused admission into the number of Eoman citizens
even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than
Eome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have
truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity.
Much less does it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost
blush to admit into thine such men. Wherefore, if thou wouldst
attain to the blessed city, shun the society of devils. They
who are propitiated by deeds of shame, are imworthy of the
worship of right-hearted men. Let these, then, be obliterated
from your worship by the cleansing of tlie Christian religion,
as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor's
mark.

lUit, so far as regards carnal benefits, wliicli are the only
blessings the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, wliich
alone they shrink from enduring, we will show in the following
book tliat tlie demons have not the power they are supposed
to have ; and altliough they had it, we ought rather on that
account to despise these blessings, than for the sake of them
to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the
attainment of these blessings they gi'udge us. But tliat they
have not even this power wliich is ascribed to them by those
who worship them for tlie sake of temporal advantages, this,
I say, I will ])r(jve in tlie following book ; so let us here close
the present argument.

BOOK III.] GREAT CALAMITIES BEFORE CIIRIST's ADVENT. 91

LOOK THIED.
ARGUMENT.

AS IN THE FOREGOING BOOK AUGUSTINE HAS PROVED REGARDING MORAL AND
SPIRITUAL CALAMITIES, SO IN THIS BOOK HE PROVES REGARDING EXTERNAL
AND BODILY DISASTERS, THAT SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY THE
ROMANS HAVE BEEN CONTINUALLY SUBJECT TO THEM ; AND THAT EVEN
WHEN THE FALSE GODS WERE WORSHIPPED WITHOUT A RIVAL, BEFORE THE
ADVENT OF CHRIST, THEY AFFORDED NO RELIEF FROM SUCH CALAMITIES.

1. Of the ills which alone the wicked fear, and which the world continually
siijfcredy even ivhen the gods xoere worsldpped.

OF moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to
be deprecated, I think enough has already been said to
show that the false gods took no steps to prevent the people
who worshipped them from being overwhelmed by such cala-
mities, but rather af:?f?ravated the ruin. I see I must now
speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by the heathen —
famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and the
like calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For
evil men account those things alone evil which do not make
men evil ; neither do they blush to praise good things, and
yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It
grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if
it were man's greatest good to have everything good but him-
self. But not even such evils as were alone dreaded by the
heathen were warded off by their gods, even when they were
most unrestrictedly worshipped. For in various times and
places before the advent of our Eedeemer, the human race was
crushed with numberless and sometimes incredible calamities ;
and at that time what gods but those did the world worship,
if you except the one nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them,
such individuals as the most secret and most just judgment
of God counted worthy of divine grace ? ^ But that I may
1 Compare Aug. Epist. ad Deogratias, 102, 13 ; and De Prced. Sanct. 19.

02 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

not be prolix, I will be silent regarding the heavy calamities
that have been suffered by any other nations, and will speak
only of what happened to Ptome and tlie Roman empire, by
which I mean Rome properly so called, and those lands which
already, before the coming of Christ, had by alliance or con-
quest become, as it were, members of the body of the state.

2. Whether the gocli, whom the Creeks and Romans worshipped in common^
were justified in permitting the destruction oj Ilium.

First, then, why was Troy or Ilium, the cradle of the
Roman people (for I must not overlook nor disguise what I
touched upon in the first book^), conquered, taken, and de-
stroyed by the Greeks, though it esteemed and worshipped
the same gods as they ? Priam, some answer, paid the
penalty of the perjury of his father Laomedon.^ Then it is
true that Laomedon hired Apollo and Xeptune as his work-
men. For the story goes that he promised them w^ages, and
then broke his bargain. I wonder that famous diviner Apollo
toiled at so huge a work, and never suspected Laomedon was
going to cheat him of his pay. And Neptune too, his uncle,
brotlier of Jupiter, king of tlie sea, it really was not seemly
that he should be ignorant of wliat was to happen. For he
is introduced by Homer ^ (wlio lived and wrote before the
building of Rome) as predicting something great of the pos-
terity of /Eneas, who in fact founded Rome. And as Homer
says, Neptune also rescued iEneas in a cloud from the wrath of
Achilles, though (according to Virgil *)

" All liis will was to destroy

His own creation, perjured Troy."

Gods, then, so great as Apollo and Neptune, in ignorance of
the cheat tliat was to defraud them of their wages, built the
walls of Troy fur nothing but tlianks and thankless people.*
There may be some doubt wlietlier it is not a worse crime to
believe such persons to be gods, than to cheat such gods.
Even Homer himself did not give full credence to the story;
for while he r('])rosents Neptune, indeed, as hostile to the
Trojans, lie introduces Apollo as their champion, though the
story implies that both were offended by that fraud. If, tliere-

* Ch. iv. ' Virg. Georg. i. 502, ' I^aomotlonterB luinnis porjuria Troja;.'

s Iliad, XX. 293 ct soyi * .Eneid, v. 810, 811.

BOOK III.] INCONSISTENCY OF THE GODS. 93

fore, tliey believe their fables, let them blush to worship such
gods ; if they discredit the fables, let no more be said of the
" Trojan perjury ; " or let them explain how the gods hated
Trojan, but loved Eoman perjury. For how did the conspiracy
of Catiline, even in so large and corrupt a city, find so abun-
dant a supply of men whose hands and tongues found them a
living by perjury and civic broils ? What else but perjury
corrupted the judgments pronounced by so many of the sena-
tors ? What else corrupted the people's votes and decisions
of all causes tried before them ? For it seems that the
ancient practice of taking oaths has been preserved even in
the midst of the greatest corruption, not for the sake of re-
straining wickedness by religious fear, but to complete the tale
of crimes by adding that of perjury.

3. That the gods could not he offended by the adidtery of Paris, this crime being
so common among themselves.

There is no ground, then, for representing the gods (by
whom, as they say, that empire stood, though they are proved
to have been conquered by the Greeks) as being enraged at the
Trojan perjury. Neither, as others again plead in their de-
fence, was it indignation at the adultery of Paris that caused
them to withdraw their protection from Troy. For their
habit is to be instigators and instructors in vice, not its
avengers. " The city of Kome," says Sallust, " was first built
and inhabited, as I have heard, by the Trojans, who, flying
their country, under the conduct of ^neas, wandered about
without making any settlement." ^ If, then, the gods were
of opinion that the adultery of Paris should be punished, it
was chiefly the Ptomans, or at least the Eomans also, who
should have suffered ; for the adultery was brought about by
Eneas' mother. But how could they hate in Paris a crime
which they made no objection to in their own sister Venus,
who (not to mention any other instance) committed adultery
with Anchises, and so became the mother of ^neas ? Is it
because in the one case Menelaus^ w^as aggrieved, while in
the other Vulcan^ connived at the crime ? For the gods, I
fancy, are so little jealous of their wives, that they make no
scruple of sharing them with men. But perhaps I may be

1 De Conj. Cat. vi. 2 Helen's liusLand. ^ Venus" husband.

94 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IIL

suspected of turning tlie myths into ridicule, and not liandling
so weighty a subject with suflicient gravity. Well, tlien, let
us say that ^neas is not the son of Venus. I am willing to
admit it ; but is Ptomulus any more the son of Mars ? For
why not the one as well as tlie other ? Or is it lawful for
gods to have intercourse with women, unlawful for men to
have intercourse with goddesses ? A hard, or ratlier an in-
credible condition, that what was allowed to Mars by the law
of Venus, should not be allowed to Venus herself by her own
law. However, both cases have the authority of Home ; for
Ca3sar in modern times believed no less that he was descended
from Venus,^ than the ancient Piomulus believed himself the
son of Mars.

4. Of Varros opinion, that it is tcse/ul for men tofeijn themselves the offxpi'ing

of the gods.

Some one will say, But do you believe all this ? Not I
indeed. For even Varro, a very learned heathen, all but
admits that these stories are false, though he does not boldly
and confidently say so. But he maintains it is useful for
states that brave men believe, though falsely, that they are
descended from the gods ; for that thus the human spirit,
cherishing the belief of its divine descent, will both more
boldly venture into great enterprises, and will carry them out
more energetically, and will therefore by its very confidence
secure more abundant success. You see how wide a field is
opened to falsehood by this opinion of Varro's, which I have
expressed as well as I could in my own words ; and how
comprehensible it is, that many of the religions and sacred
legends should be feigned in a comnmnity in which it was
judged profitable for the citizens that lies should be told even
about the gods themselves.

5. That it is not credible that the rjods shoidd have punishrd the aduUery of

Par'is, setimj they showed no indiynation at tlie adultery if the mother if
Jiomidus.

But whether Venus could bear iEneas to a human father
Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor,

' Suetonius, in liis Life of JuUua Ca-sar (c. 6), relates tliat, in pronouncing a
funeral oration in praise of his aunt .lulia, C'n?.sar clainu'd for the Julian ^ns to
wliicli his family belonged a descent from Venus, through lulus, son of Eneas.

BOOK III.] THE CELME OF EOMULUS UNPUNISHED. 95

we leave as unsettled questions. For our own Scriptures
suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen angels
had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which
the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enor-
mously large and strong men. At present, then, I will limit
my discussion to this dilemma : If that which their books
relate about the mother of ^neas and the father of Eomulus
be true, how can the gods be displeased with men for adulteries
which, when committed by themselves, excite no displeasure ?
If it is false, not even in this case can the gods be angry that
men should really commit adulteries, which, even when falsely
attributed to the gods, they delight in. Moreover, if the
adultery of Mars be discredited, that Venus also may be freed
from the imputation, then the mother of Eomulus is left un-
shielded by the pretext of a divine seduction. For Sylvia
was a vestal priestess, and the gods ought to avenge this sacri-
lege on the Eomans with greater severity than Paris' adultery
on the Trojans. For even the Eomans themselves in primi-
tive times used to go so far as to bury alive any vestal who
was detected in adultery, while women unconsecrated, though
they were punished, were never punished with death for that
crime ; and thus they more earnestly vindicated the purity of
shrines they esteemed divine, than of the human bed.

6. That the gods exacted no innalty for the fraincldal act of Eomulus.

I add another instance : If the sins of men so greatly in-
censed those divinities, that they abandoned Troy to fire and
sword to punish the crime of Paris, the murder of Eomulus'
brother ought to have incensed them more against the Eomans
than the cajoling of a Greek husband moved them against the
Trojans : fratricide in a newly-born city should have provoked
them more than adultery in a city already flourishing. It
makes no difference to the question we now discuss, whether
Eomulus ordered his brother to be slain, or slew him with his
own hand ; a crime this latter which many shamelessly deny,
many through shame doubt, many in grief disguise. And we
shall not pause to examine and weigh the testimonies of his-
torical writers on the subject. All agree that the brother of
Eomulus was slain, not by enemies, not by strangers. If it

96 THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK III.

was liomulus who either coininaiided or perpetrated this crime ;
Romulus was more truly the head of the Komans than Paris
of the Trojans ; why then did he who carried off another man's
wife bring down the anger of the gods on the Trojans, while he
who took liis brother's life obtained the guardianship of those
same gods ? If, on the other hand, that crime was not \\T0ught
either by the hand or will of Eomulus, then the whole city is
chargeable with it, because it did not see to its punishment,
and thus committed, not fratricide, but parricide, which is worse.
For both brothers were tlie founders of that city, of which the
one was by villany prevented from being a ruler. So far as
I see, then, no evil can be ascribed to Troy which w^arranted
tlie gods in abandoning it to destruction, nor any good to Iiome
which accounts for the gods visiting it with prosperity ; un-
less the truth be, that they fled from Troy because they were
vanquished, and betook themselves to Eome to practise their
characteristic deceptions there. Nevertheless they kept a
footing for themselves in Troy, that they might deceive future
inhabitants who repeopled these lands ; while at IJome, by a
wider exercise of their malignant arts, they exulted in more
abundant honours.

7. OJ the destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a lieutenant of Man us.

And surely we may ask what wrong poor Ilium had done,
that, in the first heat of the civil wars of Rome, it should
suffer at the hand of Fimbria, the veriest villain among
Marius' partisans, a more fierce and cruel destruction than
the Grecian sack.^ For when the Greeks took it many
escaped, and many who did not escape were suffered to
live, though in captivity. But Fimbria from the first gave
orders that not a life should be spared, and burnt up together
the city and all its inhabitants. Thus was Ilium requited,
not by the Greeks, whom she had provoked by wrong-doing ;
but by the Romans, who liad been built out of lier ruins ;
wliile the gods, adored alike of both sides, did simply nothing,
or, to speak more correctly, could do nothing. Is it then true,
that at this timo also, after Troy had rei)aired the damage
done by the Grecian fire, all tlie gods by whose help the king-
dom stood, "forsook each fane, cacli sacred shrine ?"

* Livy, 83, one of the lost books ; aud Appiau, in Mithrulat,

BOOK III.] THE GODS POWERLESS. 97

But if SO, I ask the reason ; for in my judgment, the con-
duct of the gods was as much to be reprobated as that of the
townsmen to be applauded. For these closed their gates
against Fimbria, that they might preserve the city for Sylla,
and were therefore burnt and consumed by the enraged
general Now, up to this time, Sylla's cause was the more
worthy of the two ; for till now he used arms to restore the
republic, and as yet his good intentions had met with no
reverses. What better thing, then, could the Trojans have
done ? What more honourable, what more faithful to Eome, or
more worthy of her relationship, than to preserve their city for
the better part of the Eomans, and to shut their gates against
a parricide of his country ? It is for the defenders of the
gods to consider the ruin which this conduct brought on Troy.
The gods deserted an adulterous people, and abandoned Troy
to the fires of the Greeks, that out of her ashes a chaster
Eome might arise. But why did they a second time aban-
don this same town, allied now to Eome, and not makins
war upon her noble daughter, but preserving a most stedfast
and pious fidelity to Eome's most justifiable faction ? Why did
they give her up to be destroyed, not by the Greek heroes,
but by the basest of the Eomans ? Or, if the gods did not
favour Sylla's cause, for which the unhappy Trojans main-
tained their city, why did they themselves predict and pro-
mise Sylla such successes ? Must we call them flatterers of
the fortunate, rather than helpers of the wretched ? Troy was
not destroyed, then, because the gods deserted it. For the
demons, always watchful to deceive, did what they could.
For, when all the statues were overthrown and burnt together
with the town, Livy tells us that only the image of Minerva
is said to have been found standing uninjured amidst the
ruins of her temple ; not that it might be said in their praise,
" The gods who made this reahn divine," but that it might not
be said in their defence. They are " gone from each fane, each
sacred shrine:" for that marvel was permitted to them, not
that they might be proved to be powerful, but that they might
be convicted of being present.

8. Whether Eome ought to have been entrusted to the Trojan gods ?

Where, then, was the wisdom of entrusting Eome to the
VOL. L G

98 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK HT.

Trojan gods, who bad demonstrated their weakness in the
loss of Troy ? Will some one say that, when Fimbria
stormed Troy, the gods were already resident in Rome ?
How, then, did the image of Minerva remain standing ?
Besides, if they were at Kome when Fimbria destroyed Troy,
perhaps they were at Troy when Rome itself was taken and set
on fire by the Gauls. But as they are very acute in hearing,
and very swift in their movements, they came quickly at the
cackling of the goose to defend at least the Capitol, though to
defend the rest of the city they were too long in being warned.

9. Whether it is credible that the peace during the reign of Numa was brought
about by the gods.

It is also believed that it was by the help of the gods that
the successor of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, enjoyed peace
during his entire reign, and shut the gates of Janus, which
are customarily kept open^ during war. And it is supposed
he was thus requited for appointing many religious observ-
ances among the Romans. Certainly that king would have
commanded our congratulations for so rare a leisure, had he
been wise enough to spend it on wholesome pursuits, and,
subduing a pernicious curiosity, had sought out the true God
with true piety. But as it was, the gods were not the authors
of his leisure ; but possibly they would have deceived him less
had they found him busier. For the more disengaged they
found him, the more they themselves occupied his attention.
Varro informs us of all his efforts, and of the arts he employed
to associate these gods with himself and the city ; and in its
own place, if God will, I shall discuss these matters. !Mean-
while, as we are speaking of the benefits conferred by the
gods, I readily admit that peace is a great benefit ; but it is
a benefit of the true God, which, like the sun, the rain, and
other supports of life, is frequently conferred on the ungrate-
ful and wicked. But if this great boon was conferred on
Rome and Pompilius by their gods, why did they never after-
wards grant it to the Roman empire during even more meri-
torious periods ? Were the sacred rites more efficient at

^ The gates of Jiiiius were not the pates of a temple, hut the gates of a passage
calhMl Janus, which waa used only for military purposes ; shut therefore in peace,
open in war.

BOOK III.] PEACE NOT THE GIFT OF THE GODS. 99

their first institution than during their subsequent celebra-
tion ? But they had no existence in Numa's time, until he
added them to the ritual ; whereas afterwards they had
already been celebrated and preserved, that benefit might
arise from them. How, then, is it that those forty-three, or
as others prefer it, thirty-nine years of Numa's reign, were
passed in unbroken peace, and yet that afterwards, when the
worship was established, and the gods themselves, who were
invoked by it, were the recognised guardians and patrons of
the city, we can with difficulty find during the whole period,
from the building of the city to the reign of Augustus, one
year — that, viz., which followed the close of the first Punic
war — in which, for a marvel, the Eomans were able to shut
the gates of war ?^

10. Whether it was desirable that the Roman empire should he increased hy such
ajurious succession of wars, when it might have been quiet and safe hi/
following in the peaceful ways of Numa.

Do they reply that the Eoman empire could never have
been so widely extended, nor so glorious, save by constant
and unintermitting wars ? A fit argument, truly • Why
must a kingdom be distracted in order to be great ? In this
little world of man's body, is it not better to have a moderate
stature, and health with it, than to attain the huge dimensions
of a giant by unnatural torments, and when you attain it to
find no rest, but to be pained the more in proportion to the
size of your members ? What evil would have resulted, or
rather what good would not have resulted, had those times
continued which Sallust sketched, when he says, " At first the
kings (for that was the first title of empire in the world) were
divided in their sentiments : part cultivated the mind, others
the body : at that time the life of men was led without
covetousness ; every one was sufficiently satisfied with his
own !" Was it requisite, then, for Eome's prosperity, that the
state of things which Virgil reprobates should succeed :

"At length stole on a baser age.
And war's indomitable rage, •

•• And greedy lust of gain ? " ^

1 The year of the Consuls T. Manlius and C. Atilius, a.u.c. 519.

2 Sail. Conj. Cat. ii. 3 ^neid, viii. 326-7.

100 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

But obviously the Romans Imve a plausible defence for
undertaking and carrying on such disastrous wars, — to wit,
that the pressure of their enemies forced them to resist, so
that they were compelled to fight, not by any greed of human
applause, but by the necessity of protecting life and liberty.
Well, let that pass. Here is Sallust's account of the matter :
" For when their state, enriched with laws, institutions, tem-
tory, seemed abundantly prosperous and sufficiently powerful,
according to the ordinary law of human nature, opulence gave
birth to envy. Accordingly, the neighbouring kings and states
took arms and assaulted them. A few allies lent assistance ;
the rest, struck with fear, kept aloof from dangers. But the
Romans, watchful at home and in war, were active, made pre-
parations, encouraged one another, marched to meet their
enemies, — protected by arms their liberty, country, parents.
Afterwards, when they had repelled the dangers by their
bravery, they carried help to their allies and friends, and pro-
cured alliances more by conferring than by receiving favours." ^
This was to build up Rome's greatness by honourable means.
But, in Numa's reign, I would know whether the long peace
was maintained in spite of the incursions of wicked neigh-
bours, or if these incursions were discontinued that the peace
might be maintained ? For if even then Rome was harassed
by wars, and yet did not meet force with force, the same
means she then used to quiet her enemies without conquering
them in war, or terrifying them with the onset of battle, she
miglit have used always, and have reigned in peace with the
gates of Janus shut. And if this was not in her power, then
Rome enjoyed peace not at the will of her gods, but at the
wiU of her neighbours round about, and only so long as they
cared to provoke her with no war, unless perhaps these pitiful
gods will dare to sell to one man as their favour what lies not
in their power to bestow, but in the will of another man.
These demons, indeed, in so far as they are permitted, can
terrify or incite the minds of wicked men by their own pecu-
liar wickedness. I>ut if they always had this power, and if
no action were taken against their efforts by a more secret
and higher power, they would be supreme to give peace or

1 Sail. Cat. Conj. vi

BOOK III.] APOLLO'S TEARS. 101

the victories of war, which almost always fall out through
some human emotion, and frequently in opposition to the will
of the gods, as is proved not only by lying legends, which
scarcely hint or signify any grain of truth, but even by
Eoman history itself.

1 1. Of the statue of Apollo at CumcB, whose tears are supposed to have portended
disaster to the Greeks, whom the god was unable to succour.

And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed
in the story of the Cuman Apollo, who is said to have wept
for four days during the war with the Achseans and King
Aristonicus. And when the augurs were alarmed at the
portent, and had determined to cast the statue into the sea,
the old men of Cumse interposed, and related that a similar
prodigy had occurred to the same image during the wars
against Antiochus and against Perseus, and that by a decree
of the senate gifts had been presented to Apollo, because the
event had proved favourable to the Eomans. Then sooth-
sayers were summoned who were supposed to have greater
professional skill, and they pronounced that the weeping of
Apollo's image was propitious to the Eomans, because Cuma3
was a Greek colony, and that Apollo was bewailing (and
thereby presaging) the grief and calamity that was about to
light upon his own land of Greece, from which he had been
brought. Shortly afterwards it was reported that King Aris-
tonicus was defeated and made prisoner, — a defeat certainly
opposed to the will of Apollo ; and this he indicated by even
shedding tears from his marble image. And this shows us
that, though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not
altogether devoid of truth, but describe the manners of the
demons in a sufficiently fit style. For in Virgil Diana
mourned for Camilla,^ and Hercules wept for Pallas doomed
to die.^ This is perhaps the reason why Numa Pompilius,
too, when, enjoying prolonged peace, but without knowing or
inquiring from whom he received it, he began in his leisure
to consider to what gods he should entrust the safe keeping
and conduct of Pome, and not dreaming that the true,
almighty, and most high God cares for earthly affairs, but
recollecting only that the Trojan gods which ^neas had

1 ^neid, xi, 532. « Ibid. x. 464.

102 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

brought to Italy had been able to preserve neither the Trojan
nor Lavinian kingdom founded by ^neas himself, concluded
that he must provide other gods as guardians of fugitives
and helpers of the weak, and add them to those earlier
divinities who had either come over to Rome with Romulus,
or when Alba was destroyed.

12. Tliat the Romana added a vast numher of godn to those introduced by
Numa, and that their numbers helped them not at all.

But though Pompilius introduced so ample a ritual, yet did
not Rome see fit to be content with it. For as yet Jupiter
himself had not his chief temple, — it being King Tarquin
who built the Capitol. And iEsculapius left Epidaurus for
Rome, that in this foremost city he might have a finer field
for the exercise of his great medical skill.^ The mother of
the gods, too, came I know not whence from Pessinuns ; it
being unseemly tliat, while her son presided on the Capitoline
hill, she herself should lie hid in obscurity. But if she is the
mother of all tlie gods, she not only followed some of her
children to Rome, but left others to follow her. I wonder,
indeed, if she were the mother of Cynocephalus, who a long
while afterwards came from Eg}TDt. Whether also the goddess
Fever was her offspring, is a matter for her grandson iEscu-
lapius ■^ to decide. But of whatever breed she be, the foreign
gods will not presume, I trust, to call a goddess base-born who
is a Roman citizen. AVho can number the deities to whom
the guardianship of Rome was entrusted ? Indigenous and
imported, both of heaven, earth, hell, seas, fountains, rivers ;
and, as Varro says, gods certain and uncertain, male and
female : for, as amonf^ animals, so amonj: all kinds of jiods
are there these distinctions. Rome, then, enjoying the pro-
tection of such a cloud of deities, miglit surely have been pre-
served from some of those great and horrible calamities, of
which I can mention but a few. For by the great smoke of
her altars she summoned to her protection, as by a beacon-
fire, a host of gods, ft)r wliom she appointed and maintained
temples, altars, sacrifices, priests, and thus offended the true
and most high God, to whom alone all this ceremonial is law-
fully duo. And, indeed, she was more prosperous when she
' Livy, X. 47. ' Being son of Ai>oIlo.

BOOK III.] BLOODY NUPTIALS OF THE ROMANS. 103

had fewer gods ; but the greater she became, the more gods
she thought she should have, as the larger ship needs to be
manned by a larger crew. I suppose she despaired of the
smaller number, under whose protection she had spent com-
paratively happy days, being able to defend her greatness.
For even under the kings (with the exception of Numa Pom-
pilius, of whom I have already spoken), how wicked a con-
tentiousness must have existed to occasion the death of
Komulus' brother !

13. By what right or agreement the Romans obtained their first wives.

How is it that neither Juno, who with her husband Jupiter
even then cherished

" Rome's sons, tlie nation of the gown," ^

nor Venus herself, could assist the children of the loved
^neas to find wives by some right and equitable means ?
For the lack of this entailed upon the Eomans the lamentable
necessity of stealing their wives, and then waging war with
their fathers-in-law ; so that the wretched women, before they
had recovered from the wTong done them by their husbands,
were dowried with the blood of their fathers. " But • the
Eomans conquered their neighbours." Yes ; but with what
wounds on both sides, and with what sad slaughter of relatives
and neighbours ! The war of Caesar and Pompey was the
contest of only one father-in-law with one son-in-law; and
before it began, the daughter of Caesar, Pompey's wife, was
already dead. But with how keen and just an accent of grief
does Lucan ^ exclaim : " I sing that worse than civil war
waged in the plains of Emathia, and in which the crime was
justified by the victory !"

The Ptomans, then, conquered that they might, with hands
stained in the blood of their fathers-in-law, wrench the
miserable girls from their embrace, — girls wdio dared not
weep for their slain parents, for fear of offending their vic-
torious husbands ; and while yet the battle was raging, stood
with their prayers on their lips, and knew not for whom to
utter them. Such nuptials were certainly prepared for the
Ptoman people not by Venus, but Bellona ; or possibly that

» Viigil, .En. i. 286. 2 p],arsal. v. 1.

10-4 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

infernal fury Alecto had more liberty to injure them now that
Juno was aiding them, than when the prayers of that goddess
had excited her against iEneas. Andromache in captivity
was happier than these Roman brides. For though she was a
slave, yet, after she had become the wife of P}Trhus, no more
Trojans fell by his hand ; but the Romans slew in battle the
very fathers of the brides they fondled. Andromache, the
victor's captive, could only mourn, not fear, the death of her
people. The Sabine women, related to men still combatants,
feared the death of their fathers when their husbands went
out to battle, and mourned their death as they returned, while
neither their grief nor their fear could be freely expressed.
For the victories of their husbands, involving the destruction
of fellow-to^\^lsmen, relatives, brothers, fathers, caused either
pious agony or cruel exultation. IMoreover, as the fortune of
war is capricious, some of them lost their husbands by the
sword of their parents, while others lost husband and father
together in mutual destruction. For the Romans by no means
escaped with impunity, but they were driven back within
their walls, and defended themselves behind closed gates ; and
when the gates were opened by guile, and the enemy admitted
into the town, the Forum itself was the field of a hateful and
fierce engagement of fathers-in-law and sons-in-law. The
ravishers were indeed quite defeated, and, flying on all sides
to their houses, sullied with new shame their original shame-
ful and lamentable triumph. It was at this juncture that
Romulus, hoping no more from the valour of his citizens,
prayed Jupiter that they might stand their ground ; and from
this occasion the god gained the name of Stator. But not
even thus would the mischief have been finished, had not the
ravished women themselves flashed out with dishevelled hair,
and cast themselves before their parents, and thus disarmed
their just rage, not with the arms of victory, but with the
supplications of filial affection. Then Romulus, who could
not brook his own brother as a colleague, was compelled to
accept Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, as his partner on the
throne. But how long would he who misliked the fellowship
of his own twin-brother endure a stranger? So, Tatius being
slain, Romulus remained sole king, that he might be the

BOOK III.] UNNATURAL WARS OF THE ROMANS. 105

greater god. See what rights of marriage these were that
fomented unnatural wars. These were the Eoman leagues of
kindred, relationship, alliance, religion. This was the life of
the city so abundantly protected by the gods. You see how
many severe things might be said on this theme ; but our pur-
pose carries us past them, and requires our discourse for other
matters.

14. Of the wickedness of the war waged hy the Romans against the Albans, and
of the victories won hy the lust of power.

But what happened after Numa's reign, and under the other
kings, when the Albans were provoked into war, with sad re-
sults not to themselves alone, but also to the Eomans ? The
long peace of Numa had become tedious ; and with what
endless slaughter and detriment of both states did the Eoman
and Alban armies bring it to an end ! For Alba, which had
been founded by Ascanius, son of ^neas, and which was more
properly the mother of Eome than Troy herself, was provoked
to battle by Tullus Hostilius, king of Eome, and in the conflict
both inflicted and received such damage, that at length both
parties wearied of the struggle. It was then devised that the
war should be decided by the combat of three twin-brothers
from each army : from the Eomans the three Horatii stood
forward, from the Albans the three Curiatii. Two of the
Horatii were overcome and disposed of by the Curiatii ; but
by the remaining Horatius the three Curiatii were slain. Thus
Eome remained victorious, but with such a sacrifice that only
one survivor returned to his home. Whose was the loss on
both sides ? Whose the grief, but of the offspring of ^Eneas, the
descendants of Ascanius, the progeny of Yenus, the grandsons of
Jupiter ? For this, too, was a " worse than civil " war, in which
the belligerent states were mother and daughter. And to this
combat of the three twin-brothers there was added another
atrocious and horrible catastrophe. For as the two nations
had formerly been friendly (being related and neighbours), the
sister of the Horatii had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii ;
and she, when she saw her brother wearing the spoils of her
betrothed, burst into tears, and was slain by her own brother in
his anger. To me, this one girl seems to have been more humane
than the whole Eoman people. I cannot think her to blame for

106 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK ITT.

lamentiug the man to whom already she had plighted her troth,
or, as perhaps she was doing, for grieving tliat her brother should
have slain him to whom he had promised his sister. For why
do we praise the grief of iEneas (in Virgil ^) over the enemy cut
down even by his own hand ? Why did Marcellus shed tears
over the city of Syracuse, when he recollected, just before he
destroyed, its magnificence and meridian glory, and thought
upon the common lot of all things ? I demand, in the name
of humanity, that if men are praised for tears shed over ene-
mies conquered by themselves, a weak girl should not be
counted criminal for bewailing her lover slaughtered by the
hand of her brother. While, then, that maiden was weeping
for the death of her betrothed inflicted by her brothers hand,
Piome was rejoicing that such devastation had been wrought
on her mother state, and that she had purchased a victory with
such an expenditure of the common blood of herself and the
Albans.

Why allege to me the mere names and words of " glory " and
" victory ?" Tear off the disguise of wild delusion, and look at
the naked deeds : weigh them naked, judge them naked. Let
the charge be brought against Alba, as Troy was charged with
adulterv. There is no such charcje, none like it found : the
war was kindled only in order that there

** Might sound in languid ears the cry
Ot Tullus and of victory."*

This vice of restless ambition was the sole motive to that
social and parricidal war, — a vice which Sallust brands in
passing ; for when he has spoken with brief but hearty com-
mendation of those primitive times in which life was spent
without covetousness, and every one was sufiiciently satisfied
with what he had, he goes on : " But after C}tus in Asia, and
the Lacedemonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue
cities and nations, and to account the lust of sovereignty a
sufficient ground for war, and to reckon that the greatest glory

» .Enetd, x. 821, of Lnusiis :

" Hut when Anchiscs' son surveyed
The fair, fair face so ghastly made,
lie groaned, by tenderness unmannoil,
And strotdied the synipulhizing hand," etc

* Vir-il, ^ntil, vi. 813.

BOOK III.] THE GODS BLOODTHIRSTY. 107

consisted in the greatest empire;"^ and so on, as I need not now
quote. This lust of sovereignty disturbs and consumes the
human race with frightful ills. By this lust Eome was over-
come when she triumphed over Alba, and praising her own
crime, called it glory. For, as our Scriptures say, " the wicked
boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom
the Lord abhorreth."^ Away, then, with these deceitful masks,
these deluding whitewashes, that things may be truthfully seen
and scrutinized. Let no man tell me that this and the other
was a " great " man, because he fought and conquered so and
so. Gladiators fight and conquer, and this barbarism has its
meed of praise ; but I think it were better to take the conse-
quences of any sloth, than to seek the glory won by such
arms. And if two gladiators entered the arena to fight, one
being father, the other his son, who would endure such a spec-
tacle ? who would not be revolted by it ? How, then, could
that be a glorious war which a daughter-state waged against
its mother ? Or did it constitute a difference, that the battle-
field was not an arena, and that the wide plains were filled
with the carcases not of two gladiators, but of many of the
flower of two nations ; and that those contests were viewed not
by the amphitheatre, but by the whole w^orld, and furnished a
profane spectacle both to those alive at the time, and to their
posterity, so long as the fame of it is handed down ?

Yet those gods, guardians of the Eoman empire, and, as it
were, theatric spectators of such contests as these, were not
satisfied until the sister of the Horatii was added by her
brother's sword as a third victim from the Eoman side, so that
Eome herself, though she won the day, should have as many
deaths to mourn. Afterwards, as a fruit of the victory. Alba
was destroyed, though it was there the Trojan gods had formed
a third asylum after Ilium had been sacked by the Greeks, and
after they had left Lavinium, where ^neas had founded a
kingdom in a land of banishment. But probably Alba was
destroyed because from it too the gods had migrated, in their
usual fashion, as Virgil says :

"Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,
Are those who made this realm divine."^

1 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ii. 2 pg^ x. 3. - ^ ^Eneid, ii. 351-2.

108 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

Gone, indeed, and from now their third asylum, that Ptome
might seem all the wiser in committing herself to them after
they had deserted three other cities. Alba, whose king
Amulius had banished his brother, displeased tliem ; Ptome,
whose king Eomulus had slain his brother, pleased them. But
before Alba was destroyed, its population, they say, was amal-
gamated with the inhabitants of Rome, so that the two cities
were one. Well, admitting it was so, yet the fact remains
that the city of Ascanius, the third retreat of the Trojan gods,
was destroyed by the daughter-city. Besides, to effect this
pitiful conglomerate of the war's leavings, much blood was
spilt on both sides. And how shall I speak in detail of
the same wars, so often renewed in subsequent reigns, though
tliey seemed to have been finished by great victories ; and of
v/ars that time after time were brought to an end by great
slaughters, and which yet time after time were renewed
by the posterity of those who had made peace and struck
treaties ? Of this calamitous history we have no small proof,
in the fact that no subsequent king closed the gates of war ;
and therefore, with all their tutelar gods, no one of them
reigned in peace.

15. What manner o/H/c and lUath the Roman kings had.

And what was the end of the kings themselves ? Of
Romulus, a flattering legend tells us that he was assumed into
heaven. But certain Roman historians relate that he was
torn in pieces by the senate for his ferocity, and that a man,
Julius Broculus, was suborned to give out that Romulus had
appeared to him, and through him commanded the Roman
people to worship him as a god ; and that in this way the
people, who were beginning to resent the action of the senate,
were quieted and pacified. For an eclipse of the sun had also
liappened ; and this was attributed to the divine power of
liomulus by the ignorant multitude, who did not know that
it was brouglit about by the fixed laws of the sun's course :
tliough tliis grief of the sun might rather have been con-
sidered proof that Romulus liad been slain, and that the crime
was indicated by this deprivation of the sun's light ; as, in
truth, was the case when the Lord was crucified through the

BOOK III.] BLOODY DEATHS OF THE ROMAN KINGS. 109

cruelty and impiety of the Jews. For it is suJBficiently demon-
strated that this latter obscuration of the sun did not occur
by the natural laws of the heavenly bodies, because it was
then the Jewish passover, which is held only at full moon,
whereas natural eclipses of the sun happen only at the last
quarter of the moon. Cicero, too, shows plainly enough that
the apotheosis of Eomulus was imaginary rather than real, when,
even while he is praising him in one of Scipio's remarks in the
De Eepuhlica, he says : " Such a reputation had he acquired,
that when he suddenly disappeared during an eclipse of the
sun, he was supposed to have been assumed into the number
of the gods, which could be supposed of no mortal who had
not the highest reputation for virtue." -^ By these words, " he
suddenly disappeared," we are to understand that he was mys-
teriously made away with by the violence either of the tempest
or of a murderous assault. For their other ^vriters speak not
only of an eclipse, but of a sudden storm also, wliich certainly
either afforded opportunity for the crime, or itself made an end
of Eomulus. And of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king
of Eome, and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero
in the same book says, that " he was not supposed to have been
deified by this death, possibly because the Eomans were un-
willing to vulgarize the promotion they were assured or per-
suaded of in the case of Eomulus, lest they should bring it
into contempt by gratuitously assigning it to all and sundry."
In one of his invectives,^ too, he says, in round terms, "The
founder of this city, Eomulus, we have raised to immortality
and divinity by kindly celebrating his services;" implying
that his deification was not real, but reputed, and called so
by courtesy on account of his virtues. In the dialogue Hor-
tensius, too, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the sun,
he says that they " produce the same darlvness as covered
the death of Eomulus, which happened during an eclipse
of the sun." Here you see he does not at all shrink from
speaking of his " death," for Cicero was more of a reasoner
than an eulogist.

The other kings of Eome, too, with the exception of Numa
Pompilius and Ancus Marcius, who died natural deaths, what
1 Cicero, De Hep. ii. 10. 2 Contra Cat. iii. 2.

1 1 0 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

horrible ends they had ! Tullus llostilius, the conqueror and
destroyer of All^a, was, as I said, himself and all his house
consumed by lightning. Priscus Tarquinius was slain by his
predecessor's sons. Servius Tullius was foully murdered by
his son-in-law Tarquinius Superbus, who succeeded him on the
throne. Nor did so flagrant a parricide committed against
Iiome's best king drive from their altars and shrines those gods
who were said to have been moved by Paris' adidtery to treat
poor Troy in this style, and abandon it to the fire and sword
of the Greeks. jS'ay, the very Tarquin who had murdered, was
allowed to succeed his father-in-law. And this infamous par-
ricide, during the reign he had secured by murder, was allowed
to triumph in many victorious wars, and to build the Capitol
from tlieir spoils; the gods meanwhile not departing, but abiding,
and abetting, and suffering their king Jupiter to preside and
reign over them in that very splendid Capitol, the work of a
])arricide. For he did not build the Capitol in the days of
liis innocence, and then suffer banishment for subsequent
crimes ; but to that reign during which he built the Capitol,
lie won his way by unnatural crime. And when he was after-
wards banished by tlie Pomans, and forbidden the city, it
was not for his own but his son's wickedness in the affair of
Lucretia, — a crime perpetrated not only without his cogniz-
ance, but in his absence. For at that time he was besieging
Ardea, and fighting Pome's battles ; and we cannot say what
he would have done had he been aware of his son's crime.
Notwithstanding, though his opinion was neither inquired into
nor ascertained, the people stripped him ol royalty ; and when
lie returned to Pome with his army, it was admitted, but he
was excluded, abandoned by his troops, and the gates shut in
his face. And yet, after he had aj^pealed to the neighbouring
states, and tormented the Pomans with calamitous but un-
successful wars, and wlien he was deserted by the ally on
whom he most (lei)cnded, des])airing of regaining the kingdom,
he lived a retired and quiet life for fourteen years, as it
is reported, in Tusculum, a Poman town, where he grew old
in his wife's company, and at last terminated his days in a
much more desirable fashion than his father-in-law, who had
perished by the hand of his suii-iii-law ; his own daughter

BOOK III.] THE FIRST ROMAN CONSULS. Ill

abetting, if report be true. And this Tarquin the Eomans
called, not the Cruel, nor the Infamous, but the Proud ; their
own pride perhaps resenting his tyrannical airs. So little did
they make of his murdering their best king, his own father-
in-law, that they elected him their own king. I wonder if it
was not even more criminal in them to reward so bountifully
so great a criminal. And yet there was no word of the gods
abandoning the altars ; unless, perhaps, some one will say in
defence of the gods, that they remained at Eome for the pur-
pose of punishing the Eomans, rather than of aiding and profit-
ing them, seducing them by empty victories, and wearing them
out by severe wars. Such was the life of the Eomans under
the kings during the much-praised epoch of the state which
extends to the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus in the 243d
year, during which all those victories, which were bought with
so much blood and such disasters, hardly pushed Eome's
dominion twenty miles from the city ; a territory which would
by no means bear comparison with that of any petty Gaetulian
state.

16. Of the first Roman consuls, the one of whom drove the other from the country,
and shortly after perished at Rome by the hand of a wounded enemy,
and so ended a career of unnatural murders.

To this epoch let us add also that of which Sallust says,
that it was ordered with justice and moderation, while the
fear of Tarquin and of a war with Etruria was impending. For
so long as the Etrurians aided the efforts of Tarquin to regain
the throne, Eome was convulsed with distressing war. And
therefore he says that the state was ordered with justice and
moderation, through the pressure of fear, not through the in-
fluence of equity. And in this very brief period, how calami-
tous a year was that in which consuls were first created, when
the kingly power was abolished ! They did not fulfil their
term of office. For Junius Brutus deprived his colleague
Lucius Tarquinius CoUatinus, and banished him from the
city ; and shortly after he himself fell in battle, at once
slaying and slain, having formerly put to death his own sons
and his brothers-in-law, because he had discovered that they
were conspiring to restore Tarquin. It is this deed that

112 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

Virgil shudders to record, even while he seems to praise it ;

fur when he says,

" And call his own rebellious seed
For menaced liberty to bleed,"

lie immediately exclaims,

" Unhappy father ! howsoe'er
The deed be judged by after days ; "

that is to say, let posterity judge the deed as they please,
let them praise and extol the father who slew his sons, he is
unhappy. And then he adds, as if to console so unhappy a
man :

** His country's love shall all o'erbear,
And unextinguished thirst of praise." '

In the tragic end of Brutus, w^ho slew his own sons, and
though he slew his enemy, Tarquin's son, yet could not sur-
vive him, but was survived by Tarquin the elder, does not
the innocence of his colleague CoUatinus seem to be vindi-
cated, who, though a good citizen, suffered the same punish-
ment as Tarquin himself, when that tp-ant was banished ?
For Brutus himself is said to have been a relative ' of Tar-
quin. But CoUatinus had the misfortune to bear not only
the blood, but the name of Tarquin. To change his name,
then, not his country, would have been his fit penalty : to
abridge his name by this word, and be called simply L. Col-
latinus. But he was not compelled to lose what lie could
lose without detriment, but was stripped of the honour of the
first consulship, and was banished from the land he loved. Is
this, then, the glory of Brutus — tliis injustice, alike detestable
and profitless to the republic ? AVas it to this he was driven
by " his country's love, and unextinguished thirst of praise ? "
Wlien Tarquin tlie tyrant was expelled, L Tarquinius Col-
latinus, tlie husband of Lucretia, was created consul along
with Brutus. IIow justly the people acted, in looking more
to the cliaracter than the name of a citizen ! IIow unjustly
Brutus acted, in depriving of honour and country his colleague
in that new office, whom he might have deprived of his name,
if it were so offensive to him ! Such were the ills, such the
disasters, wliich fell out when the government was " ordered
» jEneidf tL 820, etc ' His nephew.

BOOK III.] DISSENSIONS IN HOME. 113

with justice and moderation." Lucretius, too, who succeeded
Brutus, was carried off by disease before the end of that same
year. So P. Valerius, who succeeded CoUatinus, and M. Hora-
tius, who fiUed the vacancy occasioned by the death of Lucre-
tius, completed that disastrous and funereal year, which had
five consuls. Such was the year in which the Eoman republic
inaugurated the new honour and office of the consulship.

1 7. Of the disasters which vexed the Eoman republic after the inauguration of
the consulship, and of the non-intervention of the gods of Rome.

After this, when their fears were gradually diminished, —
not because the wars ceased, but because they were not so
furious, — that period in which things were " ordered with
justice and moderation" drew to an end, and there followed
that state of matters which Sallust thus briefly sketches :
" Then began the patricians to oppress the people as slaves,
to condemn them to death or scourging, as the kings had
done, to drive them from their holdings, and to tyrannize over
those who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed
by these oppressive measures, and most of aU by usury, and
obliged to contribute both money and personal service to the
constant wars, at length took arms and seceded to Mount
Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus secured for themselves
tribunes and protective laws. But it w^as only the second
Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and
strife." ^ But why should I spend time in writing such
things, or make others spend it in reading them ? Let the
terse summary of Sallust suffice to intimate the misery of the
republic through aU that long period till the second Punic
war, — how it was distracted from without by unceasing w^ars,
and torn with civil broils and dissensions. So that those
victories they boast were not the substantial joys of the
happy, but the empty comforts of wretched men, and seduc-
tive incitements to turbulent men to concoct disasters upon
disasters. And let not the good and prudent Eomans be
angry at our saying this ; and indeed we need neither depre-
cate nor denounce their anger, for we know they wiU harbour
none. For we speak no more severely than their own authors,
and much less elaborately and strikingly ; yet they dihgently

> Hist. I

VOL. L H

114 THE CITY OF GOD. [ROOK III,

read these authors, and compel their children to learn them.
But they who are angry, what would they do to me were I
to say what Sallust says ? " Frequent mobs, seditions, and at
last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on
whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power
under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and
people ; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference
to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt) ;
but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good
citizens, because they maintained the existing state of tilings."
Now, if those historians judged that an honourable freedom of
speech required that they should not be silent regarding the
blemishes of their own state, which they have in many places
loudly applauded in their ignorance of that other and true city
in which citizenship is an everlasting dignity ; what does it
become us to do, whose liberty ought to be so much greater,
as our hope in God is better and more assured, when they
impute to our Christ the calamities of this age, in order that
men of the less instructed and weaker sort may be alienated
from that city in which alone eternal and blessed life can
be enjoyed ? Nor do we utter against their gods anything
more horrible than their o\vn authors do, whom they read and
circulate. For, indeed, all that we have said we have derived
from them, and there is much more to say of a worse kind
which we are unable to say.

Where, then, were those gods who are supposed to be justly
worshipped for the slender and delusive prosperity of this
world, when the Roman-s, who were seduced to their service
by lying wiles, were harassed by such calamities ? AMiere
were they when Valerius the consul was kiUed while defend-
ing the Capitol, that had been fired by exiles and slaves ? He
was himself better able to defend the temple of Jupiter, than
that crowd of divinities with their most higli and mighty king,
whose temple he came to the rescue of, were able to defend
him. "Where were tliey wlien the city, worn out with unceas-
ing seditions, was waiting in some kind of calm for the return
of the ambassadors who had been sent to Athens to borrow
laws, and was desolatiHl liy dreadful famine and pestilence ?
Where were they wlien the people, again distressed with

BOOK III.] EOME NOT DEFENDED BY THE GODS. 115

famine, created for the first time a prefect of the market ; and
when Spurius Melius, who, as the famine increased, distributed
corn to the famishing masses, was accused of aspiring to royalty,
and at the instance of this same prefect, and on the authority
of the superannuated dictator L. Quintius, was put to death by
Quintus Servilius, master of the horse, — an event which occa-
sioned a serious and dangerous riot ? Where were they when
that very severe pestilence visited Eome, on account of which
the people, after long and wearisome and useless supplications
of the helpless gods, conceived the idea of celebrating Lecti-
sternia, which had never been done before ; that is to say,
they set couches in honour of the gods, which accounts for
the name of this sacred rite, or rather sacrilege ? ^ Where
were they when, during ten successive years of reverses, the
Eoman army suffered frequent and great losses among the
Yeians, and would have been destroyed but for the succour
of Furius Camillus, who was afterwards banished by an un-
grateful country ? Where were they when the Gauls took,
sacked, burned, and desolated Eome ? Where were they when
that memorable pestilence wrought such destruction, in wliicli
Furius Camillus too perished, who first defended the ungrate-
ful republic from the Veians, and afterwards saved it from the
Gauls ? Nay, during this plague they introduced a new pes-
tilence of scenic entertainments, which spread its more fatal
contagion, not to the bodies, but the morals of the Eomans ?
AVhere were they when another frightful pestilence visited the
city — I mean the poisonings imputed to an incredible number
of noble Eoman matrons, whose characters were infected with
a disease more fatal than any plague ? Or when both con-
suls at the head of the army were beset by the Samnites in
the Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty,
600 Eoman knights being kept as hostages ; while the troops,
having laid down their arms, and being stripped of everything,
were made to pass under the yoke with one garment each ?
Or when, in the midst of a serious pestilence, lightning struck
the Eoman camp and killed many ? Or when Eome was
driven, by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send
to Epidaurus for iEsculapius as a god of medicine ; since the

^ Lectistoniia, from kdtis, a couch, and sterno, I spread.

1 1 G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

frequent adulteries of Jupiter in his youth had not perhaps
left this king of all who so long reigned in the Capitol, any
leisure for the study of medicine ? Or when, at one time,
the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites, Tuscans, and Senonian
Gauls conspired against Eome, and first slew her ambassadors,
then overthrew an army imder the prcetor, putting to the sword
13,000 men, besides the commander and seven tribunes ? Or
when the people, after the serious and long-continued dis-
turbances at Ptome, at last plundered the city and withdrew
to Janiculus ; a danger so grave, that Hortensius was created
dictator, — an office which they had recourse to only in extreme
emergencies ; and he, having brought back the people, died
while yet he retained his office, — an event without precedent
in the case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those
gods who had now iEsculapius among them ?

At that time, indeed, so many wars were everpvhere en-
gaged in, that through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for
military service the proletarii, who received this name, be-
cause, being too poor to equip for military service, they had
leisure to beget offspring.^ Pyrrhus, king of Greece, and at
that time of wide-spread renown, was invited by the Tarentines
to enlist himself against Ptome. It was to him that Apollo,
when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered
^vith some pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that which-
ever alternative happened, the god himself should be counted
divine. For he so worded the oracle,^ that whether P}Trhus
was conquered by the Pomans, or the Pomans by Pyrrhus,
the soothsaying god would securely await the issue. And
then what friglitful massacres of both armies ensued ! Yet
P3rrrhus remained conqueror, and would have been able now
to proclaim Apollo a true diviner, as he understood the oracle,
had not the Pomans been the conquerors in the next engage-
ment. And wliile such disastrous wars were being waged, a
terrible disease broke out among the women. For the pregnant
women died before delivery. And yEsculapius, I fancy, excused
himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be
arch-physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, similarly perished ;

' Prolctarius, from jyrolen, offspring.

* The oracle ran : *' Dico tc, Tyrrbe, vincerc posse Komanos."

BOOK III.] r.OME NOT PRESERVED FROM PESTILENCE. 117

SO that it was believed that the whole race of animals was
destined to become extinct. Then what shaU I say of that
memorable winter in which the weather was so incredibly
severe, that in the Forum frightfully deep snow lay for forty
days together, and the Tiber was frozen ? Had such things
happened in our time, what accusations we should have heard
from our enemies ! And that other great pestilence, which
raged so long and carried off so many ; what shall I say of
it ? Spite of all the drugs of ^sculapius, it only grew worse
in its second year, tiU at last recourse was had to the Sibyl-
line books, — a kind of oracle which, as Cicero says in his De
Divinatione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make
doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish. In this
instance, the cause of the plague was said to be that so many
temples had been used as private residences. And thus
^sculapius for the present escaped the charge of either igno-
minious negligence or want of skill. But why were so many
allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference, un-
less because supplication had long been addressed in vain to
such a crowd of gods, and so by degrees the sacred places were
deserted of worshippers, and being thus vacant, could without
offence be put at least to some human uses ? And the temples,
which were at that time laboriously recognised and restored
that the plague might be stayed, fell afterwards into disuse,
and were again devoted to the same human uses. Had they
not thus lapsed into obscurity, it could not have been pointed
to as proof of Varro's great erudition, that in his work on
sacred places he cites so many that were unknown. Mean-
while, the restoration of the temples procured no cure of the
plague, but only a fine excuse for the gods.

18. The disasters suffered by the Romans in the Punic wars, which zvere not
mitigated by the protection of the gods.

In the Punic wars, again, when victory hung so long in
the balance between the two kingdoms, when two powerful
nations were straining every nerve and using all their re-
sources against one another, how many smaller kingdoms
were crushed, how many large and flourishing cities were de-
molished, how many states were overwhelmed and ruined, how
many districts and lands far and near were desolated ! How

118 THE riTY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

often were the victors on either side vanquished ! "VVhnt
multitudes of men, both of tliose actually in arms and
of others, were destroyed ! AVhat huge navies, too, were
crippled in engagements, or were sunk hy every kind of
marine disaster ! Were we to attempt to recount or mention
these calamities, we should become writers of history. At
that period Ptome was mightily perturbed, and resorted to
vain and ludicrous expedients. On the authority of the
Sibylline books, the secular games were re-appointed, which
had been inaugurated a century before, but had faded into
oblivion in happier times. The games consecrated to the in-
fernal gods were also renewed by the pontiffs ; for they, too,
had sunk into disuse in the better times. And no wonder ;
for when they were renewed, the great abundance of dying
men made all hell rejoice at its riches, and give itself up to
sport : for certainly the ferocious wars, and disastrous quaiTels,
and bloody victories — now on one side, and now on the other
— though most calamitous to men, afforded great sport and
a rich banquet to the devils. But in the first Punic war
there w^as no more disastrous event than the Poman defeat in
which Pegulus was taken. We made mention of him in the
two former books as an incontestably great man, who had
before conquered and subdued the Carthaginians, and who
Avould have put an end to the first Punic war, had not an
inordinate appetite for praise and glory prompted him to im-
pose on the worn-out Carthaginians harder conditions than
they could bear. If the unlooked-for captivity and unseemly
bondage of this man, his fidelity to his oath, and his surpass-
ingly cruel death, do not bring a blush to the face of the gods,
it is true that they are brazen and bloodless.

Nor were there wanting at that time very hea^y disasters
witliin the city itself. For the Tiber was extraordinarily
flooded, and destroyed almost all the lower parts of the city ;
some buildings being carried away by the violence of the
torrent, wliile others were soaked to rottenness by the water
that stood round them even after the flood was gone. This
visitation was followed by a fire which was still more de-
structive, for it consumed some of the loftier buildinjrs round
tlie Porum, and spared not even its own proper temple, that of

BOOK III.] EOME RAVAGED BY FIRE. 119

Vesta, in which virgins chosen for this honour, or rather for
this punishment, had been employed in conferring, as it were,
everlasting life on fire, by ceaselessly feeding it with fresh
fuel. But at the time we speak of, the fire in the temple was
not content with being kept alive : it raged. And when the
virgins, scared by its vehemence, were unable to save those
fatal images which had already brought destruction on three
cities ^ in wliich they had been received, Metellus the priest,
forgetful of his own safety, rushed in and rescued the sacred
things, though he was half roasted in doing so. For either
the fire did not recognise even him, or else the goddess of fire
was there, — a goddess who would not have fled from the fire
supposing she had been there. But here you see how a man
could be of greater service to Vesta than she could be to him.
Now if these gods could not avert the fire from themselves,
what help against flames or flood could they bring to the state
of which they were the reputed guardians ? Facts have shown
that they were useless. These objections of ours would be
idle if our adversaries maintained that their idols are conse-
crated rather as symbols of things eternal, than to secure the
blessings of time ; and that thus, though the symbols, like all
material and visible things, might perish, no damage thereby
resulted to the things for the sake of which they had been
consecrated, while, as for the images themselves, they could be
renewed again for the same purposes they had formerly served.
But with lamentable blindness, they suppose that, through the
intervention of perishable gods, the earthly well-being and tem-
poral prosperity of the state can be preserved from perishing.
And so, when they are reminded that even when the gods re-
mained among them this well-being and prosperity were blighted,
they blush to change the opinion they are unable to defend.

19. Of the calamity of the second Punic war, which consumed the strength
of both parties.

As to the second Punic war, it were tedious to recount the
disasters it brought on both the nations engaged in so pro-
tracted and shifting a war, that (by the acknowledgment even
of those writers who have made it their object not so much to
narrate the wars as to eulogize the dominion of Piome) the

^ Troy, Lavinia, Alba.

120 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IIL

people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than
conquered. For, when Hannibal poured out of Spain over the
Pyrenees, and overran Gaul, and burst through the Alps, and
during his whole course gatliered strength by plundering and
subduing as he went, and inundated Italy like a torrent, how
bloody were the wars, and how continuous the engagements,
that were fought ! How often were the Eomans vanquished !
How many towns went over to the enemy, and how many
were taken and subdued ! "VMiat fearful battles there were,
and how often did the defeat of the Eomans shed lustre on the
arms of Hannibal ! And what shall I say of the wonderfully
crushing defeat at Canna3, wdiere even Hannibal, cruel as he
was, was yet sated with the blood of his bitterest enemies, and
gave orders that they be spared ? From this field of battle he
sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings, signifying that so
much of the rank of Kome had that day fallen, that it was
easier to give an idea of it by measure than by numbers ; and
that the frightful slaughter of the common rank and file whose
bodies lay undistinguished by the ring, and who were nume-
rous in proportion to their meanness, was rather to be conjec-
tured than accurately reported. In fact, such was the scarcity
of soldiers after this, that the Eomans impressed their criminals
on the promise of impunity, and their slaves by the bribe of
liberty, and out of these infamous classes did not so much
recruit as create an army. But these slaves, or, to give them
aU their titles, these freedmen who were enlisted to do battle
for the republic of Piome, lacked arms. And so they took
arms from the temples, as if the Eomans were saying to their
gods : Lay down those arms you have held so long in vain, if
by chance our slaves may be able to use to purpose what you,
our gods, have been impotent to use. At that time, too, the
public treasury was too low to pay the soldiers, and private
resources were used for public purposes; and so generously
did individuals contribute of their property, that, saving the
gold ring and bulla which each wore, the pitiful mark of his
rank, no senator, and much less any of tlie other orders and
tribes, reserved any gold for his own use. Lut if in our day
they were reduced to this poverty, who would be able to
endure theii' reproaches, barely endurable as they are now,

BOOK III.] DESTRUCTION OF EOME'S ALLIES. 121

when more money is spent on actors for the sake of a super-
fluous gratification, than was then disbursed to the legions ?

20. Of the destruction of the Saguntines, who received no help from the Roman
gods, though perishing on account of their fidelity to Rome.

But among all the disasters of the second Punic war, there
occurred none more lamentable, or calculated to excite deeper
complaint, than the fate of the Saguntines. This city of Spain,
eminently friendly to Eome, was destroyed by its fidelity to
the Roman people. For when Hannibal had broken treaty with
the Romans, he sought occasion for provoking them to war,
and accordingly made a fierce assault upon Saguntum. When
this was reported at Rome, ambassadors were sent to Hannibal,
urging him to raise the siege ; and when this remonstrance was
neglected, they proceeded to Carthage, lodged complaint against
the breaking of the treaty, and returned to Rome without ac-
complishing their object. Meanwhile the siege went on ; and
in the eighth or ninth month, this opulent but ill-fated city,
dear as it was to its own state and to Rome, was taken, and
subjected to treatment which one cannot read, much less nar-
rate, without horror. And yet, because it bears directly on
the matter in hand, I will briefly touch upon it. First, then,
famine wasted the Saguntines, so that even human corpses
were eaten by some : so at least it is recorded. Subsequently,
when thoroughly worn out, that they might at least escape the
ignominy of falling into the hands of Hannibal, they publicly
erected a huge funeral pile, and cast themselves into its flames,
while at the same time they slew their children and them-
selves with the sword. Could these gods, these debauchees and
gourmands, whose mouths water for fat sacrifices, and whose
lips utter lying divinations, — could they not do anything in a
case like this ? Could they not interfere for the preservation of
a city closely allied to the Roman people, or prevent it perish-
ing for its fidelity to that alliance of which they themselves
had been the mediators ? Saguntum, faithfully keeping the
treaty it had entered into before these gods, and to which it
had firmly bound itself by an oath, was besieged, taken, and
destroyed by a perjured person. If afterwards, when Hannibal
was close to the walls of Rome, it was the gods who terrified
him with lightning and tempest, and drove him to a distance.

122 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

why, I ask, did tliey not thus interfere before ? For I make
bold to say, that this demonstration with the tempest would
have been more honourably made in defence of the allies of
Home — who were in danger on account of their reluctance to
break faith with the Eomans, and had no resources of their
own — than in defence of the Romans themselves, who were
fighting in their own cause, and had abundant resources to
oppose Hannibal. If, then, they had been the guardians of
Roman prosperity and glory, they would have preserved that
glory from the stain of this Saguntine disaster; and how silly
it is to believe that Rome was preserved from destruction at
the hands of Hannibal by the guardian care of those gods who
were unable to rescue the city of Saguntum from perishing
through its fidelity to the alliance of Rome. If the popula-
tion of Sagimtum had been Christian, and had suffered as it
did for the Christian faith (though, of course, Christians would
not have used fire and sword against their own persons), they
would have suffered with that hope which springs from faith
in Christ — the hope not of a brief temporal reward, but of un-
ending and eternal bliss. "Wliat, then, will the advocates and
apologists of these gods say in their defence, when charged
with the blood of these Saguntines ; for they are professedly
worshipped and invoked for this very purpose of securing pro-
sperity in this fleeting and transitory life ? Can anything be
said but what was alleged in the case of Regulus' death ? For
though there is a difference between the two cases, the one
being an individual, the other a whole community, yet the
cause of destruction was in both cases the keeping of their
plighted troth. For it was this which made Regulus willing
to return to his enemies, and this which made the Saguntines
unwilling to revolt to their enemies. Does, then, the keeping
of faith provoke the gods to anger ? Or is it possible that not
only individuals, but even entire communities, perish while
the gods arc propitious to them ? Let our adversaries choose
which alternative they will. If, on the one hand, those gods
are enraged at the keeping of faith, let them enlist perjured
persons as their worshippers. If, on the other hand, men and
states can suffer great and terrible calamities, and at last perish
while favoured by the gods, then does their worship not pro-

BOOK III.] r.OME'S BEST CITIZENS UNREWABDED. 123

duce happiness as its fruit. Let those, therefore, who suppose
that they have fallen into distress because their religious wor-
ship has been abolished, lay aside their anger ; for it were quite
possible that did the gods not only remain with them, but re-
gard them with favour, they might yet be left to mourn an
unhappy lot, or might, even like Eegulus and the Saguntines,
be horribly tormented, and at last perish miserably.

21. Of the ingratitude of Rome to Scipio, its deliverer, and of its manners
during the period which Sallust describes as the best.

Omitting many things, that I may not exceed the limits
of the work I have proposed to myself, I come to the epoch
between the second and last Punic wars, during which, accord-
ing to Sallust, the Eomans lived with the greatest virtue and
concord. Now, in this period of virtue and harmony, the
great Scipio, the liberator of Eome and Italy, who had with
surprising ability brought to a close the second Punic war —
that horrible, destructive, dangerous contest — who had defeated
Hannibal and subdued Carthage, and whose whole life is said
to have been dedicated to the gods, and cherished in their
temples, — this Scipio, after such a triumph, was obliged to
yield to the accusations of his enemies, and to leave Ms
country, which his valour had saved and liberated, to spend
the remainder of his days in the town of Liternum, so
indifferent to a recall from exile, that he is said to have
given orders that not even his remains should lie in his
ungrateful country. It was at that time also that the pro-
consul Cn. Manlius, after subduing the Galatians, introduced
into Eome the luxury of Asia, more destructive than all
hostile armies. It was then that iron bedsteads and expen-
sive carpets were first used; then, too, that female singers
were admitted at banquets, and other licentious abominations
were introduced. But at present I meant to speak, not of the
evils men voluntarily practise, but of those they suffer in spite
of themselves. So that the case of Scipio, who succumbed to
his enemies, and died in exile from the country he had rescued,
was mentioned by me as being pertinent to the present dis-
cussion; for this was the reward he received from those
Eoman gods whose temples he saved from Hannibal, and
who are worshipped only for the sake of securing temporal

124 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK III.

liappincss. But since Sallust, as we have seen, declares that

the manners of Piome were never better than at that time, I

therefore judged it right to mention the Asiatic luxury then

introduced, that it might be seen that what he says is true, only

when that period is compared with the others, during which

the morals were certainly worse, and the factions more \'iolent.

For at that time — I mean between the second and third Punic

war — that notorious Lex Voconia was passed, which prohibited

a man from making a woman, even an only daughter, his heir;

than which law I am at a loss to conceive what could be

more unjust. It is true that in the interval between these

two Punic wars the misery of Rome was somewhat less.

Abroad, indeed, their forces were consumed by wars, yet also

consoled by victories ; while at home there were not such

disturbances as at other times. But -when the last Punic war

had terminated in the utter destruction of Pome's rival, which

quickly succumbed to the other Scipio, who thus earned for

himself the surname of Africanus, then the Poman republic was

overwhelmed with such a host of ills, which sprang from the

corrupt manners induced by prosperity and security, that the

sudden overthrow of Carthage is seen to have injured Pome

more seriously than her long-continued hostility. During the

whole subsequent period down to the time of Ca}sar Augustus,

who seems to have entirely deprived the Pomans of liberty, —

a liberty, indeed, which in their own judgment was no longer

glorious, but full of broils and dangers, and which now was

quite enervated and languishing, — and who submitted all things

aiiain to the will of a monarch, and infused as it were a new

life into the sickly old age of the republic, and inaugurated a

fresh Ti^gimc ; — during this whole period, I say, many military

disasters were sustained on a variety of occasions, all of which

I here pass by. There was specially the treaty of Xumantia,

blotted as it was with extreme disgrace ; for the sacred

chickens, they say, flew out of the coop, and thus augured

disaster to Mancinus the consid ; just as if, during all these

years in which that little city of Numantia had withstood the

l)esieging army of Pome, and had become a teiTor to the

republic, the other generals had all marched against it under

unfavourable auspices.

BOOK III.] MASSACRE OF ROMAN CITIZENS. 125

22. OJ the edict of Mithridates, commanding that all Roman citizens found in
Asia should be slain.

These things, I say, I pass in silence ; but I can "by no
means be silent regarding the order given by Mithridates,
king of Asia, that on one day all Eoman citizens residing
anywhere in Asia (where great numbers of them were follow-
ing their private business) should be put to death : and this
order was executed. How miserable a spectacle was then
presented, when each man was suddenly and treacherously
murdered wherever he happened to be, in the field or on the
road, in the town, in his own home, or in the street, in market
or temple, in bed or at table ! Think of the groans of the
dying, the tears of the spectators, and even of the executioners
themselves. For how cruel a necessity was it that compelled
the hosts of these victims, not only to see these abominable
butcheries in their own houses, but even to perpetrate them :
to change their countenance suddenly from the bland kindli-
ness of friendship, and in the midst of peace set about the
business of war ; and, shall I say, give and receive w^ounds,
the slain being pierced in body, the slayer in spirit ! Had
all these murdered persons, then, despised auguries ? Had
they neither public nor household gods to consult when they
left their homes and set out on that fatal journey ? If they
had not, our adversaries have no reason to complain of these
Christian times in this particular, since long ago the Eomans
despised auguries as idle. If, on the other hand, they did
consult omens, let them tell us what good they got thereby,
even when such things were not prohibited, but authorized,
by human, if not by divine law.

23. Of the internal disasters lohich vexed the Roman republic, and followed a
portentous madness which seized all the domestic animals.

But let US now mention, as succinctly as possible, those
disasters which were still more vexing, because nearer home ;
I mean those discords which are erroneously called civil, since
they destroy civil interests. The seditions had now become
urban wars, in which blood was freely shed, and in which par-
ties raged against one another, not ^ith wrangling and verbal
contention, but with physical force and arms. What a sea of
Eoman blood was shed, what desolations and devastations were

12C THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK IIL

occasioned iii Italy by wars social, wars servile, wars civil !
Before the Latins began the social war against liome, all the
animals used in the service of man — dogs, horses, asses, oxen,
and all the rest that are subject to man — suddenly grew wild,
and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls
and wandered at large, and could not be closely approached
either by strangers or their own masters ^vithout danger. If
tliis w^as a portent, how serious a calamity must have been
portended by a plague wliich, whether portent or no, was in
itself a serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the
heathen would have been more rabid against us than their
animals were against them.

24. Of the civil disseiision occasioned by tJie sedition of the Gracchi.

The civil wars originated in the seditions which the
Gracclii excited regarding the agrarian laws ; for they were
minded to divide among the people the lands which were
wrongfully possessed by the nobility. But to reform an
abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full of peril, or
rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what disasters
accompanied the death of the elder Gracchus ! what slaughter
ensued when, shortly after, the younger brother met the same
fate ! For noble and ignoble were indiscriminately massacred ;
and this not by legal authority and procedure, but by mobs
and armed rioters. After the death of the younger Gracchus,
the consul Lucius Opimius, who had given battle to him
within the city, and had defeated and put to the sword both
himself and his confederates, and had massacred many of the
citizens, instituted a judicial examination of others, and is
reported to have put to death as many as 3000 meiL From
this it may be gathered how many fell in tlie riotous en-
counters, when the result even of a judicial investigation was
so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus himself sold his head
to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the previous
agreement. In this massacre, too, ^larcus Fulvius, a man of
consular rank, with all his children, was put to death.

25. 0/ iJie temple of Concord, which vxu erected by a decree of the senate on Vie
seme of these seditions and via^^sacres.

A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by wliich tlie
temple of Concord was built on the spot where that disastrous

BOOK III.] TEMPLE OF CONCOED. 127

rising had taken place, and where so many citizens of every
rank had fallen.^ I suppose it was that the monument of the
Gracchi's punishment might strike the eye and affect the
memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to deride
the gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she
been in the city, would not have suffered herself to be torn
by such dissensions ? Or was it that Concord was chargeable
with that bloodshed because she had deserted the minds of
the citizens, and was therefore incarcerated in that temple ?
For if they had any regard to consistency, why did they not
rather erect on that site a temple of Discord ? Or is there
a reason for Concord being a goddess while Discord is none ?
Does the distinction of Labeo hold here, who would have
made the one a good, the other an evil deity ? — a distinction
which seems to have been suggested to him by the mere fact
of his observing at Eome a temple to Fever as well as one to
Health. But, on the same ground. Discord as well as Concord
ought to be deified. A hazardous venture the Eomans made
in provoking so wicked a goddess, and in forgetting that the
destruction of Troy had been occasioned by her taking offence.
For, being indignant that she was not invited with the other
gods [to the nuptials ot Peleus and Thetis], she created dis-
sension among the three goddesses by sending in the golden
apple, which occasioned strife in heaven, victory to Venus,
the rape of Helen, and the destruction of Troy. Wlierefore,
if she was perhaps offended that the Eomans had not thought
her worthy of a temple among the other gods in their city,
and therefore disturbed the state with such tumults, to how
much fiercer passion would she be roused when she saw the
temple of her adversary erected on the scene of that massacre,
or, in other words, on the scene of her own handiwork } Those
wise and learned men are enraged at our laughing at these
follies ; and yet, being worshippers of good and bad divinities
alike, they cannot escape this dilemma about Concord and
Discord: either they have neglected the worship of these
goddesses, and preferred Fever and War, to whom there are
shrines erected of great antiquity, or they have worshipped

^ Under the inscription on the temple some person wrote the line, " Yecoidiiie
opus ccdem facit Concordiae" — The work of discord makes the temple of Concord.

128 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

them, and after all Concord has abandoned them, and Discord
lias tempestuously hurled them into civil wars.

26. 0/ the various kinds of wars which followed the building of the temple of

Concord.

But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord
within the view of the orators, as a memorial of the punish-
ment and death of the Gracchi, they were raising an effectual
obstacle to seditioiL How much effect it had, is indicated by
the still more deplorable wars that followed. For after this
the orators endeavoured not to avoid the example of the
Gracchi, but to surpass their projects ; as did Lucius Satur-
ninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius the praetor,
and some time after Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred sedi-
tions which first of all occasioned bloodshed, and then the
social wars by which Italy was grievously injured, and reduced
to a piteously desolate and wasted condition. Then followed the
servile war and the civil wars ; and in them what battles were
fought, and what blood was shed, so that almost all the peoples
of Italy, which formed the main strength of the Roman empire,
were conquered as if they were barbarians ! Then even liisto-
rians themselves find it difficult to explain how the servile war
was begun by a very few, certainly less than seventy gladiators,
what numbers of fierce and cruel men attached themselves to
these, how many of the Eoman generals this band defeated,
and how it laid waste many districts and cities. And that
was not the only ser\'ile war : the province of Macedonia, and
subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also depopulated
by bands of slaves. And who can adequately describe either
the horrible atrocities which the })irates first committed, or the
wars tliey afterwards maintained against Eome ?

27. Of tlie civil loar between Marius and Sijlla.

. But when Marius, stained with the blood of his feUow-
citizens, wlioni the rage of party had sacrificed, was in his turn
vanquished and driven from the city, it had scarcely time to
breathe freely, when, to use the words of Cicero, " Cinna and
Marius togetlier returned and took possession of it. Then,
indeed, the foremost men in the state were put to death, its
lights quenched. Sylla aftenvards avenged this cruel victory ;

BOOK III.] ATKOCITIES OF MAPJUS. 129

but we need not say with what loss of life, and with what ruin
to the republic."^ For of this vengeance, which was more
destructive than if the crimes which it punished had been
committed with impun^!ty, Lucan says : " The cure was ex-
cessive, and too closely resembled the disease. The guilty
perished, but when none but the guilty survived : and then
private hatred and anger, unbridled by law, were allowed free
indulgence."^ In that war between Marius and Sylla, besides
those who fell in the field of battle, the city, too, was filled
with corpses in its streets, squares, markets, theatres, and
temples ; so that it is not easy to reckon whether the victors
slew more before or after victory, that they might be, or be-
cause they were, victors. As soon as Marius triumphed, and
returned from exile, besides the butcheries everywhere per-
petrated, the head of the consul Octavius was exposed on the
rostrum ; Caesar and Fimbria were assassinated in their own
houses ; the two Crassi, father and son, were murdered in one
another's sight ; Bebius and Numitorius were disembowelled by
being dragged with hooks ; Catulus escaped the hands of his
enemies by drinking poison ; Merula, the flamen of Jupiter,
cut his veins and made a libation of his own blood to his god.
Moreover, every one whose salutation Marius did not answer
by giving his hand, was at once cut down before his face.

28, Of the victory of Sylla, the avenger of the cruelties of Mariiis.

Then followed the victory of Sylla, the so-called avenger of
the cruelties of Marius. But not only was his victory pur-
chased with great bloodshed ; but when hostilities were finished,
hostility survived, and the subsequent peace was bloody as the
war. To the former and still recent massacres of the elder
Marius, the younger Marius and Carbo, who belonged to the
same party, added greater atrocities. For when Sylla ap-
proached, and they despaired not only of victory, but of life
itself, they made a promiscuous massacre of friends and foes.
And, not satisfied with staining every corner of Eome with
blood, they besieged the senate, and led forth the senators to
death from the curia as from a prison. Mucins Scaevola the
pontiff was slain at the altar of Vesta, which he had clung to

1 Cicero, in Catilin. iii. 8uh. fin. 2 Lucan, Pharsal. ii. 142-146.

VOL. I. I

130 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

because no spot in Kome was more sacred than her temple ;
and his blood well-nigh extinguished the fire which was kept
alive by the constant care of the virgins. Then Sylla entered
the city victorious, after having slaughtered in the Villa Publica,
not by combat, but by an order, 7000 men who had sur-
rendered, and were therefore unarmed ; so fierce was the rage
of peace itself, even after the rage of war was extinct. More-
over, throughout the whole city every partisan of Sylla slew
whom he pleased, so that the number of deaths went beyond
computation, till it was suggested to Sylla that he should allow
some to survive, that the victors might not be destitute of
subjects. Then this furious and promiscuous licence to murder
was checked, and much relief was expressed at the publication
of the proscription list, containing . though it did the death-
warrant of two thousand men of the highest ranks, the sena-
torial and equestrian. The large number was indeed sadden-
ing, but it was consolatory that a limit was fixed ; nor was the
grief at the numbers slain so great as the joy that the rest
were secure. But this very security, hard-hearted as it was,
could not but bemoan the exquisite torture applied to some of
those who had been doomed to die. For one was torn to
pieces by the imarmed hands of the executioners ; men treat-
ing a living man more savagely than wild beasts are used to
tear an abandoned corpse. Another had his eyes dug out, and
his limbs cut away bit by bit, and was forced to live a long
while, or rather to die a long while, in such torture. Some
celebrated cities were put up to auction, like farms ; and one
was collectively condemned to slaughter, just as an individual
criminal would be condemned to deatL These tilings were
done in peace when the war was over, not that victory might
be more speedily obtained, but that, after being obtained, it
might not be thought lightly of Peace \ded with war in
cruelty, and surpassed it : for while war overthrew armed
hosts, peace slew the defenceless. War gave liberty to him
who was attacked, to strike if he could ; peace granted to the
survivors not life, but an unresisting deatk

29. A comparison of the dlsastrrH irhich Home ejrperiruccd during the Gothic
and Oaltic invasiotiSf with those occa^oncd by the authors of the civil wars.

A\Tiat fury of foreign nations, what barbaiian ferocity, can

BOOK III.] CRUELTIES OF SYLLA. 131

compare with this victory of citizens over citizens ? Which
was more disastrous, more hideous, more bitter to Eome : the
recent Gothic and the old Gallic invasion, or the cruelty dis-
played by Marius and Sylla and their partisans against men
v/ho were members of the same body as themselves ? The
Gauls, indeed, massacred all the senators they found in any part
of the city except the Capitol, which alone was defended ; but
they at least sold life to those who were in the Capitol, though
they might have starved them out if they could not have
stormed it. The Goths, again, spared so many senators, that
it is the more surprising that they killed any. But Sylla,
while Marius was still living, established himself as conqueror
in the Capitol, which the Gauls had not violated, and thence
issued his death-warrants ; and when Marius had escaped by
flight, though destined to return more fierce and bloodthirsty
than ever, Sylla issued from the Capitol even decrees of the
senate for the slaughter and confiscation of the property of
many citizens. Then, when SyUa left, what did the Marian
faction hold sacred or spare, when they gave no quarter even
to Mucins, a citizen, a senator, a pontiff, and though clasping
in piteous embrace the very altar in which, they say, reside
the destinies of Eome ? And that final proscription list of
Sylla' s, not to mention countless other massacres, despatched
more senators than the Goths could even plunder.

30. Of the connection of the wars which with great severity and frequency
followed one another before the advent of Christ.

With what effrontery, then, wdth what assurance, with what
impudence, with what folly, or rather insanity, do they refuse
to impute these disasters to their own gods, and impute the
present to our Christ ! These bloody civil wars, more distressing,
by the avowal of their own historians, than any foreign wars,
and which were pronounced to be not merely calamitous, but
absolutely ruinous to the republic, began long before the coming
of Christ, and gave birth to one another ; so that a concatena-
tion of unjustifiable causes led from the wars of Marius and
Sylla to those of Sertorius and Catiline, of whom the one was
proscribed, the other brought up by Sylla ; from this to the
war of Lepidus and Catulus, of whom the one wished to rescind,
the other to defend the acts of SyUa ; from this to the war of

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK III.

Pompoy and Cicsar, of whom Pompey had been a partisan of
Sylla, whose power he equalled or even surpassed, while Caesar
condemned Pompey's power because it was not his o^vn, and
yet exceeded it when Pompey was defeated and slain. From
him the chain of civil wars extended to the second Csesar,
afterwards called Augustus, and in whose reign Christ was
born. For even Augustus himself waged many civil wars ;
and in these wars many of the foremost men perished, among
them that skilful manipulator of the republic, Cicero. Caius
[Julius] Cicsar, when he had conquered Pompey, though he
used his \dctory with clemency, and granted to men of the op-
posite faction both life and honours, was suspected of aiming
at royalty, and was assassinated in the curia by a party of
noble senators, who had conspired to defend the liberty of the
republic. II is power was then coveted by Antony, a man of
very different character, polluted and debased by every kind of
vice, who was strenuously resisted by Cicero on the same plea
of defending the liberty of the republic. At this juncture that
other CiCsar, the adopted son of Caius, and afterwards, as I
said, known by the name of Augustus, had made his cUhiit as
a young man of remarkable genius. This youthful C^sar was
favoured by Cicero, in order that his influence might counteract
that of Antony ; for he hoped that Ciesar would o^'erthrow^ and
blast the power of Antony, and establish a free state, — so blind
and unaware of the future was he : for that very young man,
whose advancement and influence he was fostering, allowed
Cicero to be killed as the seal of an alliance with Antony, and
subjected to his own rule the very liberty of the republic in
defence of which he had made so many orations.

31. That it M effrontery to impute the present troubles to Christ and the pro-
hibition oj polytheiMic worship, since even when the gods were worshipped
such calamities befrll the people.

I>ct those who liave no gratitude to Christ for His great
benefits, bhimc tlieir own gods for tliese heavy disasters. Fi>r
certainly wlien these occurred the altars of the gods were kept
blazing, and there rose the mingled fmgrance of " Saba'an
incense and fresh garlands ; " * the priests were clothed witli
lionour, the shrines were maintained in splendour; sacrifices,

' Virgil, J^ntid, i. 417.

BOOK III.] CHRISTIANITY UNJUSTLY ACCUSED. 133

games, sacred ecstasies, were common in the temples ; while the
blood of the citizens was being so freely shed, not only in
remote places, but among the very altars of the gods. Cicero
did not choose to seek sanctuary in a temple, because Mucins
had sought it there in vain. But they who most unpardon-
ably calumniate this Christian era, are the very men who
either themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedi-
cated to Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they
might be safe. In short, not to recapitulate the many
instances I have cited, and not to add to their number others
which it were tedious to enumerate, this one thing I am per-
suaded of, and this every impartial judgment will readily
acknowledge, that if the human race had received Christianity
before the Punic wars, and if the same desolating calamities
which these wars brought upon Europe and Africa had fol-
lowed the introduction of Christianity, there is no one of those
who now accuse us who would not have attributed them to
our religion. How intolerable would their accusations have
been, at least so far as the Eomans are concerned, if the
Christian religion had been received and diffused prior to the
invasion of the Gauls, or to the ruinous floods and fires which
desolated Eome, or to those most calamitous of all events, the
civil wars ! And those other disasters, which were of so strange
a nature that they were reckoned prodigies, had they happened
since the Christian era, to whom but to the Christians would
they have imputed these as crimes ? I do not speak of those
things which were rather surprising than hurtful, — oxen speak-
ing, unborn infants articulating some words in their mothers'
wombs, serpents flying, hens and women being changed into
the other sex ; and other similar prodigies which, whether true
or false, are recorded not in their imaginative, but in their his-
torical works, and which do not injure, but only astonish men.
But when it rained earth, when it rained chalk, when it rained
stones — not hailstones, but real stones — this certainly was
calculated to do serious damage. We have read in their books
that the fires of Etna, pouring down from the top of the moun-
tain to the neighbouring shore, caused the sea to boil, so that
rocks were burnt up, and the pitch of ships began to run, — a
phenomenon incredibly surprising, but at the same time no

134 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IIT.

less hurtful By tlie same violent heat, they relate that on
another occasion Sicily was filled with cinders, so that the
houses of the city Catina were destroyed and huried under
tl^em, — a calamity which moved the Eomans to pity them, and
remit their tribute for that year. One may also read that
Africa, which had by that time become a province of Rome,
was visited by a prodigious multitude of locusts, which, after
consuming the fruit and foliage of the trees, were driven into
the sea in one vast and measureless cloud ; so that when they
were drowned and cast upon the shore the air was polluted,
and so serious a pestilence produced that in the kingdom of
Masinissa alone they say there perished 800,000 persons,
besides a much greater number in the neighbouring districts.
At Utica they assure us that, of 30,000 soldiers then garrison-
ing it, there survived only ten. Yet which of these disasters,
suppose they happened now, would not be attributed to the
Christian religion by those who thus thoughtlessly accuse us,
and whem we are compelled to answer ? And yet to their
own gods they attribute none of these things, though they
worship them for the sake of escaping lesser calamities of the
same kind, and do not reflect that they who formerly wor-
shipped them were not preserved from these serious disasters.

BOOK IV.] EECAPITULATION. 135

BOOK FOUETH;

ARGUMENT.

IN" THIS BOOK IT IS PROVED THAT THE EXTENT AND LONG DURATION OF THE
KOMAN EMPIRE IS TO BE ASCRIBED, NOT TO JOVE OR THE GODS OF THE
HEATHEN, TO WHOM INDIVIDUALLY SCARCE EVEN SINGLE THINGS AND
THE VERY BASEST FUNCTIONS WERE BELIEVED TO BE ENTRUSTED, BUT TO
THE ONE TRUE GOD, THE AUTHOR OF FELICITY, BY WHOSE POWER AND
JUDGMENT EARTHLY KINGDOMS ARE FOUNDED AND MAINTAINED.

1. Of the things which have been discussed in thejlrst book.

HAVING begun to speak of tlie city of God, I have
thought it necessary first of all to reply to its enemies,
who, eagerly pursuing earthly joys, and gaping after transitory
things, throw the blame of all the sorrow they suffer in them
— rather through the compassion of God in admonisliing,
than His severity in punishing — on the Christian religion,
which is the one salutary and true religion. And since there
is among them also an unlearned rabble, they are stirred up
as by the authority of the learned to hate us more bitterly,
thinking in their inexperience that things which have hap-
pened unwontedly in their days were not wont to happen in
other times gone by ; and whereas this opinion of theirs is con-
firmed even by those who know that it is false, and yet dis-
semble their knowledge in order that they may seem to have
just cause for murmuring against us, it was necessary, from
books in which their authors recorded and published the his-
tory of bygone times that it might be known, to demonstrate
that it is far otherwise than they think; and at the same
time to teach that the false gods, whom they openly wor-
shipped, or still worship in secret, are most unclean spirits,
and most malignant and deceitful demons, even to such a
pitch that they take delight in crimes which, whether real or

1 In Augustine's letter to Evodius (169), which was ^^Titten towards the end
of the year 415, he mentions that this fourth book and the following one were
begun and finished during that same year.

136 THE CITY OF GOD. [UOOK IV.

(july fictitious, are yet their own, wliicli it has been their will
to have celebrated in honour of them at their own festivals ;
so that human infirmity cannot be called back from the per-
l)etration of damnable deeds, so long as authority is furnished
lor imitating them that seems even divine. These things we
have proved, not from our o^vn conjectures, but partly from
recent memory, because we ourselves have seen such things
celebrated, and to such deities, partly from the writings of
those who have left these things on record to posterity, not as
if in reproach, but as in honour of their own gods. Thus
Varro, a most learned man among them, and of the weightiest
authority, when he made separate books concerning things
human and things divine, distributing some among the human,
others among the divine, according to the special dignity of
each, placed the scenic plays not at all among things human,
but among things divine ; though, certainly, if only there
were good and honest men in the state, the scenic plays ought
not to be allowed even among things human. And this he
did not on his own authority, but because, being born and
educated at Home, he found them among the divine things.
Now as we briefly stated in the end of the first book what
we intended afterwards to discuss, and as we have disposed
of a part of this in the next two books, we see what our
readers will expect us now to take up.

2. Of those tilings ichich are contained in Books Second and Third.

AVe had promised, then, that w^e would say something
against those who attribute the calamities of the Eoman re-
public to our religion, and that we would recount the evils,
as many and great as we could remember or might deem
sufficient, which that city, or the provinces belonging to its
empire, had suffered before their sacrifices were prohibited,
all of whicli would beyond doubt have been attributed to us,
if our religion had either already shone on them, or had thus
prohibit(;d their sacrilegious rites. These things we have, as
we think, fully disposed of in the second and third books,
treating in the second of evils in morals, which alone or
chiefly aro to be accounted evils ; and in the third, of those
which only fools dread to undergo — namely, those of the body

BOOK IV.] EECAPITULATION. 137

or of outward things — which for the most part the good also
suffer. But those evils by which they themselves become
evil, they take, I do not say patiently, but with pleasure. And
how few evils have I related concerning that one city and its
empire ! Not even all down to the time of Caesar Augustus.
What if I had chosen to recount and enlarge on those evils,
not which men have inflicted on each other, such as the de-
vastations and destructions of war, but which happen in earthly
things, from the elements of the world itself ? Of such evils
Apuleius speaks briefly in one passage of that book which he
wrote, De Mundo, saying that all earthly things are subject to
chanfre, overthrow, and destruction.-^ For, to use his own
words, by excessive earthquakes the ground has burst asunder,
and cities with their inhabitants have been clean destroyed :
by sudden rains whole regions have been washed away ; those
also which formerly had been continents, have been insulated
by strange and new-come waves, and others, by the subsiding
of the sea, have been made passable by the foot of man : by
winds and storms cities have been overthrown; fires have
flashed forth from the clouds, by which regions in the East
being burnt up have perished ; and on the western coasts the
like destructions have been caused by the bursting forth of
waters and floods. So, formerly, from the lofty craters of Etna,
rivers of fire kindled by God have flowed like a torrent down
the steeps. If I had wished to collect Irom history wherever
I could, these and similar instances, where should I have
finished Avhat happened even in those times before the name
of Christ had put down those of their idols, so vain and hurt-
ful to true salvation ? I promised that I should also point
out which of their customs, and for what cause, the true God,
in whose power all kingdoms are, had deigned to favour to
the enlargement of their empire ; and how those whom they
think gods can have profited them nothing, but much rather
hurt them by deceiving and beguiling them ; so that it seems
to me I must now speak of these things, and chiefly of the
increase of the Eoman empire. For I have already said not
a little, especially in the second book, about the many evils
introduced into their manners by the hurtful deceits of the

1 Conip. Bacon's Essay on the Vicissitudes of Thimjs.

133 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

demons whom they worshipped as gods. But throughout all

tlie three books already completed, where it appeared suitable,

we have set forth how much succour God, through the name

of Christ, to whom the barbarians beyond the custom of war

j)aid so much honour, has bestowed on the good and bad,

according as it is written, " Who maketh His sun to rise on

the good and the evil, and giveth rain to the just and the

unjust."^

3. Whether the great extent of the empire, which has been acquired only hy tears,
is to be reckoned among the good things either of the wise or the happy.

Now, therefore, let us see how it is that they dare
to ascribe the very great extent and duration of the Eoman
empire to those gods whom they contend that they worship
honourably, even by the obsequies of vile games and the
ministry of vile men : although I should like first to inquire
for a little what reason, what prudence, there is in wish-
ing to glory in the greatness and extent of the empire, when
you cannot point out the happiness of men who are always
rolling, with dark fear and cruel lust, in warlike slaughters
and in blood, which, whether shed in civil or foreign war, is
still human blood ; so that their joy may be compared to glass
in its fragile splendour, of which one is horribly afraid lest it
should be suddenly broken in pieces. That this may be more
easily discerned, let us not come to nought by being carried
away with empty boasting, or blunt the edge of our attention
by loud-sounding names of things, when we hear of peoples,
kingdoms, provinces. But let us suppose a case of two men ;
for each individual man, like one letter in a language, is as it
were the element of a city or kingdom, however far-spreading
in its occupation of the earth. Of these two men let us sup-
pose that one is poor, or rather of middling circumstances ; the
other very rich. But the rich man is anxious with fears,
pining with discontent, burning with covetousness, never
secure, always uneasy, panting from the perpetual strife of
his enemies, adding to his patrimony indeed by these miseries
to an immense degree, and by these additions al^o heaping
up most bitter cares. lUit that other man of moderate wealth
is contented with a small and compact estate, most dear to

* M;iU. V. 45.

BOOK lY.] WHAT THE HAPPINESS OF DOMINION IS. 139

his own family, enjoying the sweetest peace with his kindred
neighbours and friends, in piety religious, benignant in mind,
healthy in body, in life frugal, in manners chaste, in conscience
secure. I know not whether any one can be such a fool, that
he dare hesitate which to prefer. As, therefore, in the case of
these two men, so in two families, in two nations, in two king-
doms, this test of tranquillity holds good ; and if we apply
it vigilantly and without prejudice, we shall quite easily see
where the mere show of happiness dwells, and where real
felicity. Wherefore if the true God is worshipped, and if He
is served with genuine rites and true virtue, it is advantageous
that good men should long reign both far and wide. Nor is
this advantageous so much to themselves, as to those over
whom they reign. For, so far as concerns themselves, their
piety and probity, which are great gifts of God, suffice to give
them true felicity, enabling them to live well the life that
now is, and afterwards to receive that which is eternal. In
this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable, not
so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion
of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for
they destroy their own souls by greater licence in wickedness ;
while those who are put under them in service are not hurt
except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils
imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment
of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man,
although he is a slave, is free ; but the bad man, even if he
reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far
more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices ; of which
vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, " For of w^hom
any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave."^

4. How like kingdoms without justice are to robberies.

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but
great robberies ? For what are robberies themxSelves, but little
kingdoms ? The band itself is made up of men ; it is ruled
by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact
of the confederacy ; the booty is divided by the law agreed on.
If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases

' 2 Pet. ii. 19.

140 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes pos-
session of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more
])lainly tlie name of a kingdom, because the reality is now
manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covctousness,
but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt
and true reply wliich was given to Alexander the Great by a
]iirate wlio had been seized. For when tliat king had asked
the man wliat lie meant by keeping hostile possession of the
sea, he answered with bold pride, " AVhat thou meanest by
seizing tlie whole earth ; but because I do it with a petty
sliip, I am called a robber, whilst tliou who dost it with a
great fleet art styled emperor." ^

5. Of the runaway gladiators whose povcer became like that of royal dignity.

I sliall not therefore stay to inquire what sort of men
liomulus gathered together, seeing he deliberated much about
them, — how, being assumed out of that life they led into the
fellowship of his city, they might cease to think of the punish-
ment they deserved, the fear of which had driven them to
greater villanies ; so that henceforth they might be made more
peaceable members of society. But this I say, that the Roman
empire, which by subduing many nations had already grown
great and an object of universal dread, was itself greatly
alarmed, and only with much difficulty avoided a disastrous
overthrow, because a mere handful of gladiators in Campania,
escaping from the games, had recruited a great army, appointed
three generals, and most widely and cruelly devastated Italy.
Let them say what god aided these men, so that from a small
and contemptible band of robbers they attained to a kingdom,
feared even l)y the Komans, wlio had such great forces and
fortresses. Or will they deny tliat they were divinely aided
because they did not last long?* As if, indeed, the life of
any man whatever la.stcd long. In that case, too, the gods
aid no one to reign, since all individuals quickly die ; nor is
sovereign power to be reckoned a benefit, because in a little
time in every man, and tlius in all of them one by one, it
vani.slics like a vapour. For what does it matter to those

* Nonius MarccU. borrows this anecdote from Cicero, Dt Ecpub. iii

• It waa extinguished by Crassusin its third vear.

BOOK IV.] OF NINUS. 141

who worshipped the gods under Eomulus, and are long since
dead, that after their death the Koman empire has grown so
great, while they plead their causes before the powers beneath ?
Whether those causes are good or bad, it matters not to the
question before us. And this is to be understood of all those
who carry with them the heavy burden of their actions, having
in the few days of their life swiftly and hurriedly passed over
the stage of the imperial office, although the office itself has
lasted through long spaces of time, being filled by a constant
succession of dying men. If, however, even those benefits
which last only for the shortest time are to be ascribed to the aid
of the sods, these gladiators were not a little aided, who broke
the bonds of their servile condition, fled, escaped, raised a
great and most powerful army, obedient to the will and orders
of their chiefs and much feared by the Eoman majesty, and
remaining unsubdued by several Eoman generals, seized many
places, and, having won very many victories, enjoyed what-
ever pleasures they wished, and did what their lust suggested,
and, until at last they were conquered, which was done witli
the utmost difficulty, lived sublime and dominant. But let
us come to greater matters.

6. Concerning the covetousness of Ninus, who was the first who made war on his
neighbours, that he might rule more widely.

Justinus, who wrote Greek or rather foreign history in
Latin, and briefly, like Trogus Pompeius whom he followed,
begins his work thus : " In the beginning of the affairs of
peoples and nations the government was in the hands of kings,
who were raised to the height of this majesty not by courting
the people, but by the knowledge good men had of their modera-
tion. The people were held bound by no laws ; the decisions
of the princes were instead of laws. It was the custom to
guard rather than to extend the boundaries of the empire ; and
kingdoms were kept within the bounds of each ruler's native
land. Ninus king of the Assyrians first of all, through new
lust of empire, changed the old and, as it were, ancestral
custom of nations. He first made war on his neighbours,
and wholly subdued as far as to the frontiers of Libya tlie
nations as yet untrained to resist." And a little after he says :
" Ninus established by constant possession the greatness of the

142 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

authority be had gained. Having mastered his nearest neigh-
bours, be went on to others, strengthened by the accession of
forces, and by making each fresh victory the instrument of
that which followed, subdued the nations of the whole East."
Now, with whatever fidelity to fact either he or Trogus may
in general have written — for that they sometimes told lies is
shown by other more trustworthy writers — yet it is agreed
among other authors, that the kingdom of the Assyiians was
extended far and wide by King Kinus. And it lasted so long,
that the Koman empire has not yet attained the same age ;
for, as those write who have treated of chronological history,
this kingdom endured for twelve hundred and forty years
from the first year in which Xinus began to reign, until it
was transferred to the Medes. But to make war on your
neighbours, and thence to proceed to others, and through mere
lust of dominion to crush and subdue people who do you no
harm, what else is this to be called than great robbery ?

7. Whether earthly kinffdoms in their rise and fall have been either aided or
deserted by the help of the <jods.

If tliis kingdom was so great and lasting without the aid of
the gods, why is the ample territory and long duration of the
lioman empire to be ascribed to the Eoman gods ? Tor what-
ever is the cause in it, the same is in the other also. But if
they contend that the prosperity of the other also is to be
attributed to the aid of the gods, I ask of which ? For the
other nations whom Ninus overcame, did not then worship
other gods. Or if the Assyrians had gods of their own, who,
so to speak, were more skilful workmen in the construction
and preservation of tlie empire, whether are they dead, since
th<'y themselves have also lost the empire ; or, having been
defrauded of their pay, or promised a greater, have they chosen
rather to go over to the Medes, and from them again to the
Persians, bi^cause Cyrus invited them, and promised them
Bometliing still more advantageous ? This nation, indeed,
since the time of the kingdom of Alexander the Macedonian,
which wjis as brief in duration as it was great in extent, has
prcser\'ed its own empire, and at this day occupies no small
territories in the East If this is so, then either the gods are
unfaitliful, who desert their own and go over to their enemies.

BOOK IV.] EMPIRE NOT CONFERRED BY THE GODS. 143

which Camilkis, who was but a man, did not do, when, being
victor and subduer of a most hostile state, although he had
felt that Eome, for whom he had done so much, was ungrate-
ful, yet afterwards, forgetting the injury and remembering his
native land, he freed her again from the Gauls ; or they are
not so strong as gods ought to be, since they can be overcome
by human skill or strength. Or if, when they carry on war
among themselves, the gods are not overcome by men, but
some gods who are peculiar to certain cities are perchance
overcome by other gods, it follows that they have quarrels
among themselves which they uphold, each for his own part.
Therefore a city ought not to worship its own gods, but rather
others who aid their own worshippers. Finally, whatever
may have been the case as to this change of sides, or flight,
or migration, or failure in battle on the part of the gods, the
name of Christ had not yet been proclaimed in those parts
of the earth when these kingdoms were lost and transferred
through great destructions in war. For if, after more than
twelve hundred years, when the kingdom was taken away
from the Assyrians, the Christian religion had there already
preached another eternal kingdom, and put a stop to the
sacrilegious worship of false gods, what else would the foolish
men of that nation have said, but that the kingdom which
had been so long preserved, could be lost for no other cause
than the desertion of their own religions and the reception of
Christianity ? In wliich foolish speech that might have been
uttered, let those we speak of observe their own likeness, and
blush, if there is any sense of shame in them, because they
have uttered similar complaints ; although the Eoman empire
is afflicted rather than changed, — a thing which has befallen
it in other times also, before the name of Christ was heard,
and it has been restored after such affliction, — a thin^ which
even in these times is not to be despaired of. For who knows
the will of God concerning this matter ?

8. Which of the gods can the Romans suppose presided over the increase and
preservation of their empire, when they have believed that even the care
of single things coidd scarcely be committed to single gods ?

Next let us ask, if they please, out of so great a crowd of
gods which the Eomans worship, whom in especial, or what

144 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

gods tliey believe to have extended and preserved that empire.
Now, surely of tliis work, which is so excellent and so very
full of the highest dignity, they dare not ascribe any pai*t to
tlie goddess Cloacina ;^ or to Volupia, wlio has her appellation
from voluptuousness ; or to Libentina, wIkj has her name from
lust ; or to Vaticanus, who presides over the screaming of
infants ; or to Cunina, who rules over their cradles. But
liow is it possible to recount in one part of this book all the
names of gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely com-
prise in great volumes, distributing among these divinities
tlieir peculiar offices about single things ? They have not
even thought that the charge of their lands should be com-
mitted to any one god : but they have entrusted their farms
to Kusina ; the ridges of tlie mountains to Jugatinus ; over
the downs they have set the goddess Collatina; over the
valleys, Yallonia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so
competent, that they could commend to her care all their com
crops at once ; but so long as their seed-corn was still under
the ground, they would have the goddess Seia set over it;
then, whenever it was above ground and formed straw, they
set over it the goddess Segetia ; and when the grain was col-
lected and stored, they set over it the goddess Tutilina, that
it might be kept safe. "Who would not have thought that
goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of the standing corn
until it had passed from the first green blades to the dry ears ?
Yet she was not enough for men, who loved a multitude of
gods, that the miserable soul, despising the chaste embrace of
the one true God, should be prostituted to a crowd of demons.
Therefore they set Proserpina over the germinating seeds ; over
the joints and knots of the stems, the god Nodotus ; over the
sheaths enfolding tlie ears, the goddess Yolutina ; when the
sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was
ascribed to the goddess Pati'lana ; when the stems stood all
equal with new cars, because the ancients described this

' Cloarina, supposnl by La( taiitius {J)e f'nUa reluj. i. 20), Cyprian {De Idol.
vanit.), anil AuKHstine {infra, c. 23) to be the goddess of the "cloaca," or sewage
of Rome. Others, howi'ver, suppose it to be equivalent to Cluacina, a title given
to Vcnua, because thi- Uonians after the end ol the Sabine war puritied tlieni-
•elvc* {dutrc) in the vicinity of her statue.

BOOK lY.] IN WHAT SEXSE JUPITER IS SUPREME. 145

equalizing by the term Jiostire, it was ascribed to the goddess
Hostilina ; when the grain was in flower, it was dedicated to
the goddess Flora ; when full of milk, to the god Lacturnus ;
when maturing, to the goddess Matuta; when the crop was
runcated, — that is, removed from the soil, — to the goddess
Euncina. Nor do I yet recount them all, for I am sick of
all this, though it gives them no shame. Only, I have said
these very few things, in order that it may be understood
they dare by no means say that the Eoman empire has been
established, increased, and preserved by their deities, who had
all their own functions assigned to them in such a way, that
no general oversight was entrusted to any one of them.
Wlien, therefore, could Segetia take care of the empire, who
was not allowed to take care of the corn and the trees ?
When could Cunina take thought about war, whose oversight
was not allowed to go beyond the cradles of the babies ?
When could ISTodotus give help in battle, who had nothing to
do even with the sheath of the ear, but only with the knots of
the joints ? Every one sets a porter at the door of his house,
and because he is a man, he is quite sufficient; but these
people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors, Cardea to
the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold.^ Thus Forculus could
not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the
threshold.

9. Whether the great extent and long duration of the Eoman empire shoidd he
ascribed to Jove, whom his icorshippers believe to be the chief god.

Therefore omitting, or passing by for a little, that crowd of
petty gods, we ought to inquire into the part performed by
the great gods, whereby Eome has been made so great as to
reign so long over so many nations. Doubtless, therefore, this
is the work of Jove. For they will have it that he is
the king of all the gods and goddesses, as is shown by his
sceptre and by the Capitol on the lofty hill. Concerning that
god they publish a saying Avhich, although that of a poet, is
most apt, " All things are full of Jove." ^ Varro believes that
this god is worshipped, although called by another name, even
by those who worship one God alone without any image. But

* Forculum foribus, Cardeam cardiiii, Limentinum limiui.
- Virgil, Eclog. iii. 60.

VOL. I. K

14G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

if this is so, ^vhy has he been so badly used at Home (and
indeed by other nations too), that an image of him should be
made ? — a thing which was so displeasing to Varro himself,
that although he was overborne by the perverse custom of so
great a city, he had not the least hesitation in both sapng
and writing, that those who have appointed images for the
people have both taken away fear and added error.

10. What ojnnions those have followed who have set divers gods over divers
parts oj the world.

^Miy, also, is Juno united to him as his wife, who is called
at ©nee " sister and yokefellow ?"^ Because, say they, we have
Jove in the ether, Juno in the air ; and these two elements are
united, the one being superior, the other inferior. It is not
he, then, of whom it is said, " All things are full of Jove," if
Juno also fills some part. Does each fill either, and are both
of this couple in both of these elements, and in each of them
at the same time ? Why, then, is the ether given to Jove, the
air to Juno ? Besides, these two should have been enough.
Why is it that the sea is assigned to Keptune, the earth to
l^luto ? And that these also might not be left without mates,
Salacia is joined to Neptune, Proserpine to Pluto. For they
say that, as Juno possesses the lower part of the heavens, — that
is, the air, — so Salacia possesses the lower part of the sea, and
Proserpine the lower part of the earth. They seek how they
may patch up these fables, but they find no way. For if
these things were so, their ancient sages would have main-
tained that there are three chief elements of the world, not
four, in order that each of the elements might have a pair of
gods. Now, they have positively affirmed that tlie ether is
one tiling, the air another. But water, whether higher or
lower, is surely water. Suppose it ever so unlike, can it ever
be 80 much so as no longer to be water ? And the lower
earth, by whatever divinity it may be distinguished, what else
can it bo than earth ? Lo, then, since the whole physical
world is complete in these lour or three elements, where shall
Minerva be ? What should slie possess, wliat should she fiU ?
For she is placed in the Capitol along with these two, althougli
she is not the offspring -of their marriage. Or if they say that
» Virgil, J^Mid, i. 47.

BOOK IV.] GEEAT VAPJETY OF GODS. 147

she possesses the higher part of the ether, — and on that account
the poets have feigned that she sprang from the head of Jove, —
why then is she not rather reckoned queen of the gods, because
she is superior to Jove ? Is it because it would be improper
to set the daughter before the father ? Why, then, is not
that rule of justice observed concerning Jove himself toward
Saturn ? Is it because he was conquered ? Have they fought
then ? By no means, say they ; that is an old wife's fable.
Lo, we are not to believe fables, and must hold more worthy
opinions concerning the gods ! Wkj, then, do they not assign
to the father of Jove a seat, if not of higher, at least of equal
honour ? Because Saturn, say they, is length of time.^ There-
fore they who worship Saturn worship Time ; and it is insinu-
ated that Jupiter, the king of the gods, was born of Time. For
is anything unworthy said when Jupiter and Juno are said to
have been sprung from Time, if he is the heaven and she is
the earth, since both heaven and earth have been made, and
are therefore not eternal ? For their learned and wise men
have this also in their books. Nor is that saying taken by
Yirgil out of poetic figments, but out of the books of philo-
sophers,

"Then Ether, the Father Almighty, in copioiis showers desceaided
Into his spouse's glad bosom, making it fertile,"^

— that is, into the bosom of Tellus, or the earth. Although
here, also, they will have it that there are some difterences,
and think that in the earth herself Terra is one thing, Tellus
another, and Tellumo another. And they have all these as
gods, called by their own names, distinguished by their own
offices, and venerated with their own altars and rites. This
same earth also they call the mother ot the gods, so that even
the fictions of the poets are more tolerable, if, according, not
to their poetical but sacred books, Juno is not only the sister
and wife, but also the mother of Jove. The same earth they
worship as Ceres, and also as Vesta; while yet they more
frequently affirm that Vesta is nothing else than fire, pertain-
ing to the hearths, without which the city cannot exist ; and
therefore virgins are wont to serve her, because as nothing is
born of a virgin, so nothing is born of fire; — but all this
' Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 25. 2 Virgil, Georg. ii. 325, 326.

148 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

nonsense ought to be completely abolished and extinguished by
Him who is born of a virgin. For -who can bear that, while
they ascribe to the fire so much honour, and, as it were,
chastity, they do not blush sometimes even to call Vesta
Venus, so that honoured virginity may vanish in her hand-
maidens ? For if Vesta is Venus, how can virgins rightly
serve her by abstaining from venery ? Are there two Venuses,
the one a virgin, the other not a maid ? Or rather, are there
three, one the goddess of virgins, who is also called Vesta,
another the goddess of wives, and another of harlots ? To
her also the Phenicians offered a gift by prostituting their
daughters before they united them to husbands.^ Which of
these is the wife of Vulcan ? Certainly not the virgin, since
she has a husband. Far be it from us to say it is the harlot,
lest we should seem to wrong the son of Juno and fellow-
worker of Minerva. Therefore it is to be understood that
she belongs to the married people ; but we w^ould not wish
them to imitate her in what she did with Mars. "Again,"
say they, "you return to fables." What sort of justice is
that, to be angry with us because we say such things of their
gods, and not to be angTy with themselves, who in their
theatres most willingly behold the crimes of their gods ?
And, — a tiling incredible, if it were not thorouglily well
proved, — these very theatric representations of the crimes
of their gods have been instituted in honour of these same
gods.

11. Concanhvj the many gods whom the pagan doctors defend as being
one and the same Jove.

Let them therefore assert as many things as ever they
please in physical reasonings and disputations. One while let
Jupiter be the soul ot this corporeal world, who fills and
moves that whole mass, constructed and compacted out of
four, or as many elements as they please ; another while, let
liim yield to his sister and brothers their parts of it : now let
liim be the ctlier, that from above he may embrace Juno, the
air spread out beneath ; again, let him be the whole heaven
along with the air, and impregnate with fertilizing showers
and seeds the cartli, as his wife, and, at the same time, his
* Euaebius, De Prap. Evang. i. 10.

BOOK IV.] AVHETIIER ALL THE GODS ARE ONE. 149

, mother (for this is not vile in divine beings); and yet again
(that it may not be necessary to run through them all), let
him, the one god, of whom many think it has been said by
a most noble poet,

*' For God pervadeth all things,
All lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depth of the heavens, " ^ —

let it be him who in the ether is Jupiter ; in the air, Juno ;
in the sea, Neptune ; in the lower parts of the sea, Salacia ;
in the earth, Pluto ; in the lower part of the earth, Proserpine ;
on the domestic hearths, Vesta ; in the furnace of the workmen,
Vulcan ; among the stars, Sol, and Luna, and the Stars ; in
divination, Apollo ; in merchandise, Mercury ; in Janus, the
initiator ; in Terminus, the terminator ; Saturn, in time ; Mars
and Bellona, in war ; Liber, in vineyards ; Ceres, in corn-fields ;
Diana, in forests ; Minerva, in learning. Finally, let it be him
who is in that crowd, as it were, of plebeian gods : let him
preside under the name of Liber over the seed of men, and
under that of Libera over that of women: let him be Dies-
piter, who brings forth the birth to the light of day : let him
be the goddess Mena, whom they set over the menstruation
of women : let him be Lucina, who is invoked by women in
childbirth : let him bring help to those who are being born, by
taking them up from the bosom of the earth, and let him be
called Opis : let him open the mouth in the crying babe, and
be called the god Vaticanus : let him lift it from the earth,
and be called the goddess Levana ; let him watch over cradles,
and be called the goddess Cunina : let it be no other than
he who is in those goddesses, who sing the fates of the
new born, and are called Carmentes : let him preside over
fortuitous events, and be called Fortuna: in the goddess
Ptumina, let him milk out the breast to the little one, because
the ancients termed the breast ruma : in the goddess Potina,
let him administer drink : in the goddess Educa, let him supply
food : from the terror of infants, let him be styled Paventia :
from the hope which comes, Venilia; from voluptuousness,
Volupia ; from action, Agenor : from the stimulants by which
man is spurred on to much action, let him be named the god-
dess Stimula: let him be the goddess Strenia, for making

1 Virgil, Georg. iv. 221, 222.

l.'O THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

strenuous ; Numeria, who teaches to number ; Camoena, who
teaches to sing : let him be both the god Consus for granting
counsel, and the goddess Sentia for inspiring sentences : let
him be the goddess Juventas, who, after the robe of boyhood
is laid aside, takes charge of the beginning of the youthful
age : let him be Fortuna Barbata, who endues adults with a
beard, whom they have not chosen to honour; so that this
divinity, whatever it may be, should at least be a male god,
named either Barbatus, from harha, like Xodotus, from nodus ;
or, certainly, not Fortuna, but because he has beards, For-
tunius : let him, in the god Jugatinus, yoke couples in mar-
riage ; and when the girdle of the virgin wife is loosed, let
liim be invoked as the goddess Virginiensis : let him be
^lutunus or Tuternus, who, among the Greeks, is called
Priapus. If they are not ashamed of it, let all these which
I have named, and whatever others I have not named (for I
have not thought fit to name all), let all these gods and
goddesses be that one Jupiter, whether, as some will have it,
all these are parts of him, or are his powers, as those think
who are pleased to consider him the soul of the world, which
is the opinion of most of their doctors, and these the greatest
If these things are so (how evil they may be I do not yet
meanwhile inquire), what would they lose, if they, by a more
prudent abridgment, should worship one god ? For what part
of him could be contemned if he himself should be worshipped ?
But if they are afraid lest parts of him should be angry at
being passed by or neglected, then it is not the case, as they
will have it, that this whole is as the life of one living being,
which contains all the gods together, as if they were its vir-
tues, or members, or parts ; but each part has its own life
separate from the rest, if it is so that one can be angered,
appeased, or stirred up more than another. But if it is said
thiit all together, — that is, the whole Jove himself, — would be
ollcnded if his parts were not also worshipped singly and
minutely, it is foolishly spoken. Surely none of them could
be piussed by if he who singly possesses them all should be
worshipped For, to omit other things which are innumer-
able, when they say that all the stars are parts of Jove,
and are all alive, and have rational souls, and therefore

BOOK IV.] GOD THE SOUL OF THE WOELD. 151

without controversy are gods, can they not see how many they
do not worship, to how many they do not build temples or
set up altars, and to how very few, in fact, of the stars they
have thought of setting them up and offering sacrifice ? If,
therefore, those are displeased who are not severally wor-
shipped, do they not fear to live with only a few appeased,
while all heaven is displeased ? But if they worship all the
stars because they are part of Jove whom they worship, by
the same compendious method they could supplicate them all
in him alone. For in this way no one would be displeased,
since in him alone all would be supplicated. No one .would
be contemned, instead of there being just cause of displeasure
given to the much greater number who are passed by in the
worship offered to some; especially when Priapus, stretched
out in vile nakedness, is preferred to those who shine from
their supernal abode.

12. Concerning the opinion of those who have thought that God is the soul of
the world, and the world is the body of God.

Ought not men of intelligence, and indeed men of every
kind, to be stirred up to examine the nature of this opinion ?
For there is no need of excellent capacity for this task, that
putting away the desire of contention, they may observe that
if God is the soul of the world, and the world is as a body
to Him, who is the soul. He must be one living being con-
sisting of soul and body, and that this same God is a kind of
womb of nature containing aU things in HimseK, so that the
lives and souls of all living things are taken, according to the
manner of each one's birth, out of His soul which vivifies that
whole mass, and therefore nothing at all remains which is not
a part of God. And if this is so, who cannot see what im-
pious and irreligious consequences follow, such as that what-
ever one may trample, he must trample a part of God, and in
slaying any living creature, a part of God must be slaughtered ?
But I am unwilling to utter all that may occur to those who
think of it, yet cannot be spoken without irreverence.

13. Concerning those who assert that only rational animals are parts of
the one God.

But if they contend that only rational animals, such as
men, are parts of God, I do not really see how, if the whole

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

world is God, they can separate beasts from being parts of Him.
But what need is there of striving about that ? Concerning the
rational animal Iiiniself, — that is, man, — what more unhappy
belief can be entertained than that a part of God is whipped
when a boy is whipped ? And who, unless he is quite mad,
could bear the thought tliat parts of God can become lascivious,
iniquitous, impious, and altogether damnable ? In brief, why
is God angry at those who do not worship Him, since these
offenders are parts of Himself? It remains, therefore, that
they must say that aU the gods have their own lives ; that
each one lives for himself, and none of them is a part of any
one ; but that all are to be worshipped, — at least as many as
can be known and worshipped; for they are so many it is
impossible that all can be so. And of all these, I believe
that Jupiter, because he presides as king, is thought by them
to have both established and extended the Eoman empire.
Tor if he has not done it, what other god do they believe
could have attempted so great a work, when they must aU
be occupied with their own offices and works, nor can one
intrude on that of another ? Could the kingdom of men then
be propagated and increased by the king of the gods ?

14. The enlargement of kingdoms is unsuitably ascribed to Jove ; for if, as they
icill have it, Victoria is a goddess, she alone would suffice for this busitiess.

Here, first of all, I ask, why even the kingdom itself is not
some god ? For why should not it also be so, if Victory is
a goddess ? Or what need is there of Jove himself in this
affair, if Victory favours and is propitious, and always goes to
those whom she wishes to be victorious ? "With tliis goddess
favourable and propitious, even if Jove was idle and did
nothing, what nations could remain unsubdued, what king-
dom would not yield ? But perliaps it is displeasing to good
men to fight with most wicked unrighteousness, and provoke
"with voluntary war neighbours who are peaceable and do no
wrong, in order to enlarge a kingdom ? If they feel thus, I
entirely approve and praise them.

1."). Whrthnr it is suitable for good men to tclsh to rule more widely.

Let them ask, tlien, wliether it is quite fitting for good
men to rejoice in extended empire. For the iniquity of

BOOK lY.] WHETHER WIDE EMPIRE IS A BOON". 153

those with whom just wars are carried on favours the growth
of a kingdom, which would certainly have been small if the
peace and justice of neighbours had not by any wrong pro-
voked the carrying on of war against them ; and human affairs
being thus more happy, all kingdoms would have been small,
rejoicing in neighbourly concord; and thus there would have
been very many kingdoms of nations in the world, as there
are very many houses of citizens in a city. Therefore, to
carry on war and extend a kingdom over wholly subdued
nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to good men neces-
sity. But because it would be worse that the injurious should
rule over those who are more righteous, therefore even that is
not unsuitably called felicity. But beyond doubt it is greater
felicity to have a good neighbour at peace, than to conquer a
bad one by making war. Your wishes are bad, when you
desire that one whom you hate or fear should be in such a
condition that you can conquer him. If, therefore, by carr}-
ing on wars that were just, not impious or unrighteous, the
Eomans could have acquired so great an empire, ought they not
to worship as a goddess even the injustice of foreigners ? For
we see that this has co-operated much in extending the empire,
by making foreigners so unjust that they became people with
whom just wars might be carried on, and the empire increased.
And why may not injustice, at least that of foreign nations,
also be a goddess, if Fear and Dread, and Ague have deserved
to be Eoman gods ? By these two, therefore, — that is, by
foreign injustice, and the goddess Victoria, for injustice stirs
up causes of wars, and Victoria brings these same wars to a
happy termination, — the empire has increased, even although
Jove has been idle. For what part could Jove have here,
when those things which might be thought to be his benefits
are held to be gods, called gods, worshipped as gods, and are
themselves invoked for their own parts ? He also might have
some part here, if he himself might be called Empire, just as
she is called Victory. Or if empire is the gift of Jove, why
may not victory also be held to be his gift ? And it certainly
would have been held to be so, had he been recognised and
worshipped, not as a stone in the Capitol, but as the true
King of kings and Lord of lords.

154 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

IG. ]V/int was the reason why the Romans, in detailing separate gods for all
things and all movements of the mind, cliose to have the temple of Quiet
outside the gates.

But I wonder very much, that while they assigned to separate
gods single things, and (well nigh) all movements of the mind ;
that wliile they invoked the goddess Agenoria, who should
excite to action ; the goddess Stimula, who should stimulate
to unusual action ; the goddess Murcia, who should not move
men beyond measure, but make them, as Pomponius says,
murcid — that is, too slotliful and inactive ; the goddess
Strenua, who should make them strenuous ; and that while
they offered to all these gods and goddesses solemn and public
worship, they should yet have been unwilling to give public
acknowledgment to her whom they name Quies because she
makes men quiet, but built her temple outside the Colline
gate. Whether was this a symptom of an unquiet mind, or
rather was it thus intimated that he who should persevere in
worshipping that crowd, not, to be sure, of gods, but of demons,
could not dwell with quiet ; to which the true Physician calls,
saying, " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
ye shall find rest unto your souls ? "

17. Whether, if the highest power belongs to Jove, Victoria also ought to be
loorshipped.

Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess
Victoria, and that she, as it were, acting in obedience to the
king of the gods, comes to those to whom he may have de-
spatched her, and takes up her quarters on their side ? This
is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to their own
imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is
the true eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is
no person, but His angel, and causes whom He pleases to con-
quer ; whose counsel may be hidden, but cannot be unjust.
For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumj)h also a god,
and joined to Victory either as husband, or brother, or son ?
Indeed, tliey have imagined such things concerning the gods,
that if the poets had feigned tlie like, and they should have
been discussed by us, they would have replied that they were
laughable figments of the poets not to be attributed to true
deities. And yet they themselves did not laugh when they

BOOK IV.] FELICITY AND FORTUNE. 155

were, not reading in the poets, but worshipping in the temples
such doating follies. Therefore they should entreat Jove
alone for all things, and supplicate him only. For if Victory
is a goddess, and is under him as her king, wherever he might
have sent her, she could not dare to resist and do her own
will rather than his.

18. Willi what reason they who think Felicity and Fortune goddesses have
distinguished theiyi.

"What shall we say, besides, of the idea that Felicity also is
a goddess ? She has received a temple ; she has merited an
altar; suitable rites of worship are paid to her. She alone,
then, should be worshipped. For where she is present, what
good thing can be absent ? But what does a man wish, that
he thinks Fortune also a goddess and worships her ? Is felicity
one thing, fortune another ? Fortune, indeed, may be bad
as well as good ; but felicity, if it could be bad, would not be
felicity. Certainly we ought to think all the gods of either
sex (if they also have sex) are only good. This says Plato ;
this say other philosophers ; this say all estimable rulers
of the republic and the nations. How is it, then, that the
goddess Fortune is sometimes good, sometimes bad ? Is it
perhaps the case that when she is bad she is not a goddess,
but is suddenly changed into a malignant demon ? How
many Fortunes are there then ? Just as many as there are
men who are fortunate, that is, of good fortune. But since
there must also be very many others who at the very same
time are men of bad fortune, could she, being one and the
same Fortune, be at the same time both bad and good — the
one to these, the other to those ? She who is the goddess, is
she always good ? Then she herself is felicity. Why, then,
are two names given her ? Yet this is tolerable ; for it is
customary that one thing should be called by two names.
But why different temples, different altars, different rituals ?
There is a reason, say they, because Felicity is she whom the
good have by previous merit; but fortune, which is termed
good without any trial of merit, befalls both good and bad
men fortuitously, whence also she is named Fortune. How,
therefore, is she good, who without any discernment comes
both to the good and to the bad ? Why is she worshipped,

ir»C THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

who is tlius blind, lunning at random on any one whatever,
so that for the most part she passes by her worshippers, and
cleaves to those who despise her? Or if her worshippers
profit somewhat, so that they are seen by her and loved, then
she follows merit, and does not come fortuitously. AVhat,
then, becomes of that definition of fortune ? Wliat becomes
of the opinion that she has received her very name from for-
tuitous events ? For it profits one nothing to worship her if
she is truly fortune. But if she distinguishes her worshippers,
so that she may benefit them, she is not fortune. Or does
Jupiter send her too, whither he pleases ? Then let him alone
be worshipped ; because Fortune is not able to resist him
when he commands her, and sends her where he pleases. Or,
at least, let the bad worship her, who do not choose to have
merit by wliich the goddess Felicity might be invited.

19. Concerning Fortuna MuUebrh}

To this supposed deity, whom they call Fortuna, they
ascribe so much, indeed, that they have a tradition that the
image of her, which was dedicated by the Roman matrons, and
called Fortuna Muliebris, has spoken, and has said, once and
ai^ain, that the matrons pleased her by their homage ; which,
indeed, if it is true, ought not to excite our wonder. For it
is not so difficult for malignant demons to deceive, and they
fiu'^'ht the rather to advert to their wits and wiles, because it
is that goddess who comes by haphazard who has spoken,
and not she who comes to reward merit. For Fortuna was
l(»([uaci()us, and Felicitas mute; and for what other reason
but that men might not care to live rightly, having made
Fortuna their friend, who could make them fortunate without
any good desert ? And truly, if Fortuna speaks, she should at
least speak, not with a womanly, but with a manly voice ; lest
they themselves who have dedicated the image should think
so great a miracle has been wrought by feminine loquacity.

20. Concerning Virtue and Faith, which the pagans have Jionoiired trith temples
and sacred ritcjt, panning by other good qualities, which ought likewise to
have been xcorshijtped, if deify was rightly attributed to these.

They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it

* The feminine Fortune.

BOOK lY.] VIRTUE AND FAITH. 157

could be a goddess, had been preferable to many. And now,
because it is not a goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained
by prayer from Him, by whom alone it can be given, and the
whole crowd of false gods vanishes. But why is Faith believed
to be a goddess, and why does she herself receive temple and
altar ? For whoever prudently acknowledges her makes his
own self an abode for her. But how do they know what
faith is, of which it is the prime and greatest function that
the true God may be believed in ? But why had not virtue
sufficed ? Does it not include faith also ? Forasmuch as
they have thought proper to distribute virtue into four divi-
sions— prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance — and as
each of these divisions has its own virtues, faith is amons the
parts of justice, and has the chief place with as many of us as
know what that saying means, " The just shall live by faith."^
But if Faith is a goddess, I wonder why these keen lovers of a
multitude of gods have wronged so many other goddesses, by
passing them by, when they could have dedicated temples and
altars to them likewise. Why has temperance not deserved
to be a goddess, w^hen some Eoman princes have obtained no
small glory on account of her ? Why, in fine, is fortitude not
a goddess, who aided Mucins when he thrust his right hand
into the flames ; who aided Curtius, when for the sake of his
country he threw himself headlong into the yawning earth ;
who aided Decius the sire, and Decius the son, when they
devoted themselves for the army ? — though we might ques-
tion whether these men had true fortitude, if this concerned
our present discussion. Wliy have prudence and wisdom
merited no place among the gods ? Is it because they are
all worshipped under the general name of Virtue itself ?
Then they could thus worship the true God also, of whom
all the other gods are thought to be parts. But in that one
name of virtue is comprehended both faith and chastity, which
yet have obtained separate altars in temples of their own.

21. That altliourfh not understanding them to he the gifts of God, they ought at
least to have been content with Virtue and Felicity.

These, not verity but vanity has made goddesses. For
these are gifts of the true God, not themselves goddesses.

• Hab. ii. 4.

158 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

However, where virtue and felicity are, what else is sought
for ? What can suffice the man whom virtue and felicity do
not suffice ? For surely virtue compreliends all things we
need do, felicity all things we need wish for. If Jupiter,
then, was worshipped in order that he might give these two
thinfTs, — because, if extent and duration of empire is something
good, it pertains to this same felicity, — why is it not under-
stood that they are not goddesses, but the gifts of God ? But
if they are judged to be goddesses, tlien at least that other
great crowd of gods should not be sought after. For, having
considered all the offices which their fancy has distributed
among the various gods and goddesses, let them find out, if
they can, anything which could be bestowed by any god what-
ever on a man possessing virtue, possessing felicity. "WTiat
instruction could be sought either from Mercury or Minerva,
when Virtue already possessed all in herself ? Virtue, indeed,
is defined by the ancients as itself the art of living well and
rightly. Hence, because virtue is called in Greek aperrj, it
has been thought the Latins have derived from it the term
art. But if Virtue cannot come except to the clever, what
need was there of the god Father Catius, who should make
men cautious, that is, acute, when Felicity could confer this ?
Because, to be born clever belongs to felicity. "\Mience,
although goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by one
not yet born, in order that, being made his friend, she might
bestow this on him, yet she miglit confer this favour on
parents who were her worshippers, that clever children should
be born to them. "VVliat need had women in childbirth to
invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity should be present, they
would have, not oidy a good delivery, but good children too ?
Wliat need was there to commend the children to the goddess
Ops when they were being born ; to the god Vaticanus in
their birth-cry ; to the goddess Cunina when lying cradled ;
to the goddess Bumina when sucking ; to the god Statilinus
when standing ; to the goddess Adeona when coming ; to
Abeona when going away ; to the goddess Mens that they
miglit have a good mind; to the god Volumnus, and the
goddess Volumna, that they mii;ht wish for good things ; to
the nuptial gods, that they might make good matches ; to the

BOOK IV.] IS FELICITY THE SUPREME GOD ? 159

rural gods, and chiefly to the goddess Fructesca herself, that
they might receive the most abundant fruits ; to Mars and
Bellona, that they might carry on war well ; to the goddess
Victoria, that they might be victorious ; to the god Honor,
that they might be honoured; to the goddess Pecunia, that
they might have plenty money ; to the god Aesculanus, and
his son Argentinus, that they might have brass and silver
coin ? For they set down Aesculanus as the father of Argen-
tinus for this reason, that brass coin began to be used before
silver. But I wonder Argentinus has not begotten Aurinus,
since gold coin also has followed. Could they have him for a
god, they would prefer Aurinus both to his father Argentinus
and his grandfather Aesculanus, just as they set Jove before
Saturn. Therefore, what necessity was there on account of
these gifts, either of soul, or body, or outward estate, to worship
and invoke so great a crowd of gods, all of whom I have not
mentioned, nor have they themselves been able to provide for
all human benefits, minutely and singly methodized, minute
and single gods, when the one goddess Felicity was able,
with the greatest ease, compendiously to bestow the whole
of them ? nor should any other be sought after, either for the
bestowing of good things, or for the averting of evil. For
why should they invoke the goddess Fessonia for the weary ;
for driving away enemies, the goddess Pellonia ; for the sick,
as a physician, either Apollo or iEsculapius, or both together
if there should be great danger? Neither should the god
Spiniensis be entreated that he might root out the thorns
from the fields ; nor the goddess Eubigo that the mildew
might not come, — Felicitas alone being present and guarding,
either no evils would have arisen, or they would have been
quite easily driven away. Finally, since we treat of these
two goddesses. Virtue and Felicity, if felicity is the reward of
virtue, she is not a goddess, but a gift of God. But if she is
a goddess, why may she not be said to confer virtue itself,
inasmuch as it is a great felicity to attain virtue ?

22. Concerning the Jcnoivledge of the worship due to the gods, which Van-o
glories in having himself conferred on the Romans.

What is it, then, that Varro boasts he has bestowed as a
very great benefit on his fellow-citizens, because he not only

ICO THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK lY.

recounts the gods who ought to be worshipped by the Romans,
but also tells what pertains to each of them ? " Just as it is
of no advantage," he says, " to know the name and appearance
of any man who is a physician, and not know that he is a
physician, so," he says, " it is of no advantage to know well
that iEsculapius is a god, if you are not aware that he can
bestow the gift of health, and consequently do not know why
you ought to supplicate him." He also affirms this by another
comparison, saying, " Xo one is able, not only to live well, but
even to live at all, if he does not know who is a smith, who a
baker, who a weaver, from whom he can seek any utensil,
whom he may take for a helper, whom for a leader, whom for a
teacher ;" asserting, " that in this way it can be doubtful to no
one, that thus the knowledge of the gods is useful, if one can
know what force, and faculty, or power any god may have in
anything. For from this w^e may be able," he says, " to know
what god w^e ought to call to, and invoke for any cause ; lest
we should do as too many are wont to do, and desire water
from Liber, and wine from Lymphs." Very useful, forsooth !
Who would not give this man thanks if he could show true
things, and if he could teach that the one true God, from whom
all good things are, is to be worshipped by men ?

23. Concernlnfj FcUcity, whom the Homan.'^, who venerate many gods, for a long
time did not xcorship with divine honour^ though she alone toould have
sufficed instead of all.

But how does it happen, if tlieir books and rituals are true,
and Felicity is a goddess, that she herself is not appointed as
the only one to be worskipped, since slie could confer all
things, and all at once make men happy ? For who wishes
any tiling for any other reason than that he may become
hap[)y ? AVhy was it left to Lucullus to dedicate a temple
to so great a goddess at so late a date, and after so many
Roman rulers ? Wliy did Romulus himself, ambitious as he
was of founding a fortunate city, not erect a temple to this
goddess before all others ? Why did he supplicate the other
gods for anything, since he wuuld have lacked nothing had she
been with him ? For even he liimself would neither have
been first a king, then afterwards, as they think, a god, if this
goddess had not been propitious to him. Why, therefore, did

BOOK lY.] THE GODDESS FELICITY SLIGHTED. 161

he appoint as gods for the Eomans, Janus, Jove, Mars, Picus,
Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules, and others, if there were more of
them ? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, Sun, Moon,
Vulcan, Light, and whatever others he added, among whom
was even the goddess Cloacina, while Felicity was neglected ?
Wliy did Numa appoint so many gods and so many goddesses
without this one ? Was it perhaps because he could not see
her among so great a crowd ? Certainly king Hostilius would
not have introduced the new gods Fear and Dread to be propiti-
ated, if he could have known or might have worshipped this
goddess. For, in presence of Felicity, Fear and Dread would
have disappeared, — I do not say propitiated, but put to flight.
Next, I ask, how is it that the Ptoman empire had already
immensely increased before any one worshipped Felicity ? Was
the empire, therefore, more great than happy ? For how could
true felicity be there, where there was not true piety ? For
piety is the genuine worship of the true God, and not the wor-
ship of as many demons as there are false gods. Yet even
afterwards, when Felicity had already been taken into the
number of the gods, the great infelicity of the civil wars
ensued. Was Felicity perhaps justly indignant, both because
she was invited so late, and was in^dted not to honour, but
rather to reproach, because along with her were worshipped
Priapus, and Cloacina, and Fear and Dread, and Ague, and
others which were not gods to be worshipped, but the crimes
of the worshippers ? Last of all, if it seemed good to worship
so great a goddess along with a most unworthy crowd, why at
least was she not worshipped in a more honourable way than
the rest ? For is it not intolerable that Felicity is placed
neither among the gods Consentes^ whom they allege to be
admitted into the council of Jupiter, nor among the gods whom
they term Select ? Some temple might be made for her which
might be pre-eminent, both in loftiness of site and dignity of
style. Why, indeed, not something better than is made for
Jupiter himself ? For who gave the kingdom even to Jupiter
but Felicity ? I am supposing that when he reigned he was
happy. Felicity, however, is certainly more valuable than a

1 So called from the consent or liarmony of the celestial movements of these
gods.

VOL. L L

162 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

kin'^doiii. Fur no one doubts tliat a man might easily be
found who may fear to be made a king ; but no one is found
who is unwilling to be happy. Therefore, if it is thought they
can be consulted by augury, or in any other way, the gods them-
selves should be consulted about this thing, whether they may
wish to give place to Felicity. If, perchance, the place should
already be occupied by the temples and altars of others, where
a greater and more lofty temple might be built to Felicity,
even Jupiter himself might give way, so that Felicity might
rather obtain the very pinnacle of the Capitoline hilL For
there is not any one who would resist Felicity, except, which
is impossible, one who might wish to be unhappy. Certainly,
if he should be consulted, Jupiter would in no case do what
those three gods, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas, did, who posi-
tively refused to give place to their superior and king. For,
as their books record, when king Tarquin wished to construct
the Capitol, and perceived that the place which seemed to him
to be the most worthy and suitable was preoccupied by other
gods, not daring to do anything contrary to their pleasure, and
believing that they would willingly give place to a god who
was so great, and was their own master, because there were
many of them there when the Capitol was founded, he inquired
by augury whether they chose to give place to Jupiter, and
they were all willing to remove thence except those whom I
have named. Mars, Terminus, and Juventas ; and therefore the
Capitol was built in such a way that these three also might be
within it, yet with such obscure signs that even the most learned
men could scarcely know this. Surely, then, Jupiter himself
would by no means despise Felicity as he was himself despised
by Terminus, ^lars, and Juventas. But even they themselves
who had not given place to Jupiter, would certainly give place
to Felicity, who had made Jupiter king over them. Or if they
should not give place, they would act thus not out of contempt
of her, but because they chose rather to be obscure in the house
of Felicity, than to be eminent without her in their own places.
Thus the goddess Felicity being established in the largest
and loftiest place, the citizens should learn whence the further-
ance of every good desire should be sought. And so, by the
persuasion of nature herself, the superfluous multitude of other

BOOK lY.] PROPER PLACE OF FELICITY. 163

gods being abandoned, Felicity alone would be worshipped,
prayer would be made to her alone, her temple alone would
be frequented by the citizens who wished to be happy, which
no one of them would not wish ; and thus felicity, who was
sought for from all the gods, would be sought for only from
her own self. For who wishes to receive from any god any-
thing else than felicity, or what he supposes to tend to felicity ?
Wherefore, if Felicity has it in her power to be with what
man she pleases (and she has it if she is a goddess), what folly
is it, after all, to seek from any other god her whom you can
obtain by request from her own self ! Therefore they ought to
honour this goddess above other gods, even by dignity of ]Dlace.
For, as we read in their own authors, the ancient Eomans paid
greater honours to I know not what Sunamanus, to whom they
attributed nocturnal thunderbolts, than to Jupiter, to whom
diurnal thunderbolts were held to pertain. But, after a famous
and conspicuous temple had been built to Jupiter, owing to
the dignity of the building, the multitude resorted to him in
so great numbers, that scarce one can be found who remembers
even to have read the name of Summanus, which now he cannot
once hear named. But if Felicity is not a goddess, because, as
is true, it is a gift of God, that god must be sought who has
power to give it, and that hurtful multitude of false gods must
be abandoned which the vain multitude of foolish men follows
after, making gods to itself of the gifts of God, and offending
Himself whose gifts they are by the stubbornness of a proud
will. For he cannot be free from infelicity who worships
Felicity as a goddess, and forsakes God, the giver of felicity ;
just as he cannot be free from hunger who licks a painted loaf
of bread, and does not buy it of the man who has a real one.

24. Tlie reasons by whicJi the pagans attempt to defend their worshipping
among the gods the divine gifts themselves.

We may, however, consider their reasons. Is it to be
believed, say they, that our forefathers were besotted even to
such a degree as not to know that these things are divine
gifts, and not gods ? But as they knew that such things are
granted to no one, except by some god freely bestowing them,
they called the gods whose names they did not find out by the
names of those things which they deemed to be given by them ;

1C4 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IT.

sometimes sliglitly altering the name for that purpose, as, for
example, from war they have named Bellona, not helium ; from
cradles, Cunina, not cuncc; from standing corn, Segetia, not scges;
from apples, Pomona, not pomum ; from oxen, Bubona, not hos.
Sometimes, again, with no alteration of the word, just as the
things themselves are named, so that the goddess who gives
money is called Pecunia, and money is not thought to be itself
a goddess : so of Virtus, who gives virtue ; Honor, who gives
honour ; Concordia, who gives concord ; Victoria, who gives
victory. So, they say, when Felicitas is called a goddess, what
is meant is not the thing itself which is given, but that deity
by whom felicity is given.

25. Concerning the one God only to he worslupped, icJio, although Ills name is
unknown, is yet deemed to be the giver of felicity.

Having had that reason rendered to us, we shall perhaps
much more easily persuade, as we wish, those whose heart has
not become too much hardened. For if now human infirmity
has perceived that felicity cannot be given except by some
god ; if this was perceived by those who worshipped so many
gods, at whose head they set Jupiter himself; if, in their
ignorance of the name of Ilim by whom felicity was given,
they agreed to call Him by the name of that very thing which
they believed He gave ; — then it follows that they thought
that felicity could not be given even by Jupiter himself, whom
they already worshipped, but certainly by him whom they
thought fit to worship under the name of Felicity itself. I
thoroughly affirm the statement that they believed felicity to
be given by a certain God whom they knew not: let Him
therefore be sought after, let Him be worshipped, and it is
enon;;li. I^t the train of innumerable demons be repudiated,
and let this God suffice every man whom his gift suffices. For
him, I say, God the giver of felicity will not be enough to
worship, for whom felicity itself is not enough to receive.
But let liim for whom it suffices (and man has nothing more
he ought to wish tor) serve the one God, the giver of felicity.
Tills God is not he wliom they call Jupiter. For if they
acknowledged him to be tlie giver of felicity, they would not
seek, under the name of Felicity itself, for another god or goddess
by whom felicity might be given ; nor could they tolerate that

BOOK IV.] OF PLAYS. 165

Jupiter himself should be worshipped with such infamous attri-
butes. For he is said to be the debaucher of the wives of others ;
he is the shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy.

26. Oj the scenic plays, the celebration of which the gods have exacted from
their worshippers.

"But," says Cicero, "Homer invented these tilings, and
transferred things human to the gods : I would rather transfer
things divine to us."^ The poet, by ascribing such crimes to
the gods, has justly displeased the grave man. Why, then, are
the scenic plays, where these crimes are habitually spoken of,
acted, exhibited, in honour of the gods, reckoned among things
divine by the most learned men ? Cicero should exclaim, not
against the inventions of the poets, but against the customs of
the ancients. Would not they have exclaimed in reply, What
have we done ? The gods themselves have loudly demanded
that these plays should be exhibited in their honour, have
fiercely exacted them, have menaced destruction unless tliis
w^as performed, have avenged its neglect with great severity,
and have manifested pleasure at the reparation of such neglect.
Among their virtuous and wonderful deeds the following is
related. It was announced in a dream to Titus Latinius, a
Eoman rustic, that he should go to the senate and tell them
to recommence the games of Eome, because on the first day
of their celebration a condemned criminal had been led to
punishment in sight of the people, an incident so sad as to
disturb the gods who were seeking amusement from the
games. And when the peasant who had received this inti-
mation was afraid on the following day to deliver it to the
senate, it was renewed next night in a severer form : he
lost his son, because of his neglect. On the third night
he was warned that a yet graver punishment was impend-
ing, if he should still refuse obedience. When even thus
he did not dare to obey, he fell into a virulent and horrible
disease. But then, on the advice of his friends, he gave
information to the magistrates, and was carried in a litter
into the senate, and having, on declaring his dream, immedi-
ately recovered strength, went away on his own feet whole. ^
The senate, amazed at so great a miracle, decreed that the

' Tusc. Qucest. i. 26. 2 Uvy, ii. 36 ; Cicero, De Divin. 26.

ICG THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

games slioulJ be renewed at fourfold cost. "What sensible
man does not see that men, being put upon by malignant
demons, from whose domination nothing save the grace of
God through Jesus Christ our Lord sets free, have been com-
pelled by force to exhibit to such gods as these, plays which,
if well advised, they should condemn as shameful ? Certain it
is that in these plays the poetic crimes of the gods are cele-
brated, yet they are plays which were re-established by decree
of the senate, under compulsion of the gods. In these plays
the most shameless actors celebrated Jupiter as the corrupter
of chastity, and thus gave him pleasure. If that was a fiction,
he would have been moved to anger ; but if he was delighted
with the representation of his crimes, even although fabulous,
then, when he happened to be worshipped, who but the devil
could be served ? Is it so that he could found, extend, and
preserve the Roman empire, who was more vile than any
Pioman man whatever, to whom such things were displeasing ?
Could he give felicity who was so infelicitously worshipped,
and who, unless he should be thus worshipped, was yet more
infelicitously provoked to anger ?

27. Concerning the three kinds of gods ahont icJiich the pond J" Sccevo^a has

discoursed.

It is recorded that the very learned pontiff Scsevola^ had
distinguished about three kinds of gods — one introduced by
the poets, another by the philosophers, another by the states-
men. The first kind he declares to be trifling, because many
unworthy things have been invented by the poets concerning
the gods ; the second does not suit states, because it contains
some things that are superfluous, and some, too, which it would
be prejudicial for the people to know. It is no great matter
about the supei-fluous things, for it is a common saying of
skilful lawyers, " Superfluous things do no harm."^ But what
are those things which do harai wlien brought before the
multitude? "These," he says, "that Hercules, iEsculapius,
Ca.stor and Pollux, are not gods ; for it is declared by learned
men that these were but men, and yielded to the common

» Called l.y Cicero {De Oratore, i. 39) the most eloriucut of lawyers, and the
best skilled lawyer among eloquent men.
* Superflua nou noccnt.

LOOK lY.] OnXIONS OF SC^VOLA. 167

lot of mortals." What else ? " That states have not the
true images of the gods ; because the true God has neither
sex, nor age, nor definite corporeal members." The pontiff is
not willing that the people should know these things ; for he
does not think they are false. He thinks it expedient, there-
fore, that states should be deceived in matters of religion ;
which Varro himself does not hesitate even to say in liis
books about tilings divine. Excellent religion ! to which the
weak, who requires to be delivered, may flee for succour ; and
when he seeks for the truth by which he may be delivered, it
is believed to be expedient for him that he be deceived. And,
truly, in these same books, Scaevola is not silent as to liis
reason for rejecting the poetic sort of gods, — to wit, " because
they so disfigure the gods that they could not bear compari-
son even with good men, when they make one to commit
theft, another adultery ; or, again, to say or do something else
basely and foolishly ; as that three goddesses contested (with
each other) the prize of beauty, and the two vanquished by
Venus destroyed Troy; that Jupiter turned himself into a
bull or swan that he might copulate with some one ; that a
goddess married a man, and Saturn devoured his children ;
that, in fine, there is nothing that could be imagined, either
of the miraculous or vicious, which may not be found there,
and yet is far removed from the nature of the gods." 0 chief
pontiff Sca3vola, take away the plays if thou art able ; instruct
the people that they may not offer such honours to the im-
mortal gods, in which, if they like, they may admire the crimes
of the gods, and, so far as it is possible, may, if they please,
imitate them. But if the people shall have answered thee,
You, 0 pontiff, have brought these things in among us, then
ask the gods themselves at whose instigation you have ordered
these things, that they may not order such things to be offered
to them. For if they are bad, and therefore in no way to be
believed concerning the majority of the gods, the greater is the
wrong done the gods about whom they are feigned with im-
punity. But they do not hear thee, they are demons, they
teach Yvdcked things, they rejoice in vile things ; not only do
they not count it a wrong if these things are feigned about
them, but it is a wrong they are quite unable to bear if they

1(38 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

are not acted at their stated festivals. But now, if thou
wonldst call on Jupiter against them, chiefly for that reason
that more of his crimes are wont to be acted in tlie scenic
plays, is it not the case that, although you call him god
Jupiter, by whom this whole world is ruled and administered,
it is he to whom the greatest wrong is done by you, because
you have thought he ought to be worsliipped along witli them,
and have styled him their king ?

28. Whether the worship of the gods has been of service to the liohiaiis in

obtaining and extending the empire.

Therefore such gods, who are propitiated by such honours,
or rather are impeached by them (for it is a greater crime to
delight in having such things said of them falsely, than even
if they could be said truly), could never by any means have
been able to increase and preserve the Eoman empire. For
if they could have done it, they would rather have bestowed
so grand a gift on the Greeks, who, in this kind of divine
things, — that is, in scenic plays, — have worshipped them more
honourably and worthily, although they have not exempted
themselves from those slanders of the poets, by whom they
saw the gods torn in pieces, giving them licence to ill-use
any man they pleased, and have not deemed the scenic
players themselves to be base, but have held them worthy
even of distinguished honour. But just as the Eomans were
able to have gold money, although they did not worship a
god Aurinus, so also they could have silver and brass coin,
and yet worship neither Argentinus nor his father ^Esculanus ;
and so of all the rest, wliich it would be irksome for me to
detail. It follows, therefore, both that they could not by any
means attain such dominion if the true God was unwilling;
and that if these gods, false and many, were unknown or con-
temned, and He alone was known and worsliipped with sincere
faith and virtue, they would both have a better kingdom here,
whatever might be its extent, and whether they might have
one liere or not, would afterwards receive an eternal kingdom.

29. 0/ the /aUilij of the augury by which the strength and stability oj the

lioman empire was considered to be iiulicated.

For what kind of augury is that which they have declared
to be most beautiful, and to wliich I referred a little ago, that

BOOK IV.] AUGURIES REGARDING THE EMPIRE. 169

Mars, and Terminus, and Juventas would not give place even
to Jove the king of the gods ? For thus, they say, it was
signified that the nation dedicated to Mars, — that is, the Eoman,
— should yield to none the place it once occupied ; likewise,
that on account of the god Terminus, no one would be able to
disturb the Eoman frontiers ; and also, that the Eoman youth,
because of the goddess Juventas, should yield to no one. Let
them see, therefore, how they can hold him to be the king
of their gods, and the giver of their own kingdom, if these
auguries set him down for an adversary, to whom it would
have been honourable not to yield. However, if these things
are true, they need not be at all afraid. For they are not
going to confess that the gods who would not yield to Jove
have yielded to Christ. For, without altering the boundaries
of the empire, Jesus Christ has proved Himself able to drive
them, not only from their temples, but from the hearts of
their worshippers. But, before Christ came in the flesh, and,
indeed, before these things which we have quoted from their
books could have been written, but yet after that auspice was
made under king Tarquin, the Eoman army has been divers
times scattered or put to flight, and has shown the falseness
of the auspice, which they derived from the fact that the god-
dess Juventas had not given place to Jove ; and the nation
dedicated to Mars was trodden down in the city itself by the
invading and triumphant Gauls; and the boundaries of the
empire, through the falling away of many cities to Hannibal,
had been hemmed into a narrow space. Thus the beauty of
the auspices is made void, and there has remained only the
contumacy against Jove, not of gods, but of demons. For it
is one thing not to have yielded, and another to have returned
whither you have yielded. Besides, even afterwards, in the
oriental regions, the boundaries of the Eoman empire were
changed by the will of Hadrian ; for he yielded up to the
Persian empire those three noble provinces, Armenia, Meso-
potamia, and Assyria. Thus that god Terminus, who accord-
ing to these books was the guardian of the Eoman frontiers,
and by that most beautiful auspice had not given place to
Jove, would seem to have been more afraid of Hadrian, a
king of men, than of the king of the gods. The aforesaid

170 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

provinces having also been taken back again, almost within
our own recollection the frontier fell back, when Julian, given
up to the oracles of their gods, with immoderate daring ordered
the victualling ships to be set on fire. The army being thus
left destitute of provisions, and he himself also being presently-
killed by the enemy, and the legions being hard pressed, while
dismayed by the loss of their commander, they were reduced
to such extremities that no one could have escaped, unless by
articles of peace the boundaries of the empire had then been
established where they still remain ; not, indeed, with so great
a loss as was suffered by the concession of Hadrian, but still
at a considerable sacrifice. It was a vain augury, then, that
the god Terminus did not yield to Jove, since he pelded to
the will of Hadrian, and yielded also to the rashness of Julian,
and the necessity of Joviiiian. The more intelligent and grave
Romans have seen these things, but have had little power
against the custom of the state, which was bound to observe
the rites of the demons; because even they themselves, although
they perceived that these things were vain, yet thought that
the religious worship which is due to God should be paid to
the nature of things which is established under the rule and
government of the one true God, " ser\Tng," as saith the
apostle, "the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed
for evermore."^ The help of this true God was necessary to
send holy and truly pious men, who would die for the true
religion that they might remove the false from among the
living.

30. What kind (f things ex'cn their trorshippers have oxvncd thnj have thought
about the gods oj the nations.

Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for
regulating the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jack-
daws.'* But it will be said that an academic philosopher, who
argues that all things are uncertain, is unworthy to have any
authority in these matters. In the second book of his Dc
Natura Dcornm^ he introduces Lucilius I'albus, who, after
showing that superstitions have their origin in physical and
philosophicxil truths, expresses his indignation at the setting up

» IJom. i. 2.''.. « De Dlvin. ii. 37.

* Cic Dc Nat. Deurum, lib. ii. c. 23.

BOOK IV.] CICERO ON SUPEESTITION. 171

of images and fabulous notions, speaking thus : " Do you not
therefore see that from true and useful physical discoveries the
reason may be drawn away to fabulous and imaginary gods ?
This gives birth to false opinions and turbulent errors, and
superstitions well-nigh old-wifeish. For both the forms of
the gods, and their ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are
made familiar to us ; their genealogies, too, their marriages,
kinships, and all things about them, are debased to the like-
ness of human weakness. They are even introduced as having
perturbed minds ; for we have accounts of the lusts, cares,
and angers of the gods. Nor, indeed, as the fables go, have
the gods been without their wars and battles. And that not
only when, as in Homer, some gods on either side have de-
fended two opposing armies, but they have even carried on
wars on their own account, as with the Titans or with the
Giants. Such things it is quite absurd either to say or to
believe : they are utterly frivolous and groundless." Behold,
now, what is confessed by those who defend the gods of the
nations. Afterwards he goes on to say that some things
belong to superstition, but others to religion, which he thinks
good to teach according to the Stoics. "For not only the
philosophers," he says, "but also our forefathers, have made a
distinction between superstition and religion. For those," he
says, " who spent whole days in prayer, and offered sacrifice,
that their children might outlive them, are called supersti-
tious."^ Who does not see that he is trying, while he fears
the public prejudice, to praise the religion of the ancients, and
that he wishes to disjoin it from superstition, but cannot find
out how to do so ? For if those who prayed and sacrificed
all day were called superstitious by the ancients, were those
also called so who instituted (what he blames) the images of
the gods of diverse age and distinct clothing, and invented the
genealogies of gods, their marriages, and kinships ? When,
therefore, these things are found fault with as superstitious,
he implicates in that fault the ancients who instituted and
worshipped such images. Nay, he implicates himself, who,
with whatever eloquence he may strive to extricate himself

■^ Superstition, from superstes. Against this etymology of Cicero, see Lact.
Jnsi. Dlv. iv. 28.

172 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

and be free, \vas yet under the necessity of venerating these
images ; nor dared he so much as whisper in a discourse to the
people ^vhat in this disputation he plainly sounds fortk Let
us Christians, therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God, — not
to heaven and earth, as that author argues, but to Him who
has made heaven and earth ; because these superstitions, which
that Balbus, like a babbler,^ scarcely reprehends. He, by the
most deep lowliness of Christ, by the preaching of the apostles,
by the faith of the martyrs dying for the truth and living
with the truth, has overthrown, not only in the hearts of the
religious, but even in the temples of the superstitious, by their
own free service.

31. Concerning the opinions of Varro, who, while reprobating the popular belief,
thought that their worship should he confined to one god, though lie was
unable to discover the true God.

Wliat says Varro himself, whom we grieve to have found,
although not by his own judgment, placing the scenic plays
among things divine ? AVhen in many passages he is exhort-
ing, like a religious man, to the worship of the gods, does he
not in doing so admit that he does not in his own judgment
believe those things which he relates that the Roman state
has instituted ; so that he does not hesitate to affirm that if
he were founding a new state, he could enumerate the gods
and their names better by the rule of nature ? But being
born into a nation already ancient, he says that he finds him-
self bound to accept the traditional names and surnames of
the gods, and the histories connected with them, and that his
purpose in investigating and publishing these details is to in-
cline the people to worsliip the gods, and not to despise them.
By which words this most acute man sufficiently indicates
that he does not publish all things, because they would not
only have been contemptible to himself, but would have
seemed despicable even to the rabble, imless they had been
passed over in silence. I should be thought to conjecture
these things, unless he himself, in another passage, had openly
said, in speaking of religious rites, that many things are true
which it is not only not useful for the common people to
know, but that it is expedient that the people should think
* Balbus, from balbuti^ns, stammerlDg, babbling.

BOOK IV.] VARRO ON SUPERSTITION. l73

otherwise, even though falsely, and therefore the Greeks have
shut up the religious ceremonies and mysteries in silence,
and within walls. In this he no doubt expresses the policy
of the so-called wise men by whom states and peoples are
ruled. Yet by this crafty device the malign demons are
wonderfully delighted, who possess alike the deceivers and the
deceived, and from whose tyranny nothing sets free save the
grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The same most acute and learned author also says, that
those alone seem to him to have perceived what God is, who
have believed Him to be the soul of the world, governing it
by design and reason.-^ And by this, it appears, that although
he did not attain to the truth, — for the true God is not a
soul, but the maker and author of the soul, — ^y'et if he could
have been free to go against the prejudices of custom, he could
have confessed and counselled others that the one God ought
to be worshipped, who governs the world by design and
reason ; so that on this subject only this point would remain
to be debated with him, that he had called Him a soul, and
not rather the creator of the soul. He says, also, that the
ancient Eomans, for more than a hundred and seventy years,
worshipped the gods without an image.^ "And if this
custom," he says, "could have remained till now, the gods
would have been more purely worshipped." In favour of
this opinion, he cites as a witness among others the Jewish
nation ; nor does he hesitate to conclude that passage by
saying of those who first consecrated images for the people,
that they have both taken away religious fear from their
fellow-citizens, and increased error, wisely thinking that the
gods easily fall into contempt when exhibited under the
stolidity of images. But as he does not say they have
transmitted error, but that they have increased it, he there-
fore wishes it to be understood that there w^as error already
when there were no images. Wherefore, when he says they
alone have perceived what God is who have believed Him to
be the governing soul of the world, and thinks that the rites
of religion would have been more purely observed without
images, who fails to see how near he has come to the truth ?

^ See Cicero, De Nat. Dcor. i. 2. ^ Plutarch's Numa, c. 8.

174 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

For if he had been aljle to do anything against so inveterate
an error, he would certainly have given it as his opinion both
that the one God should be worsliipped, and that He should
be worshipped without an image ; and having so nearly dis-
covered the truth, perhaps he might easily have been put in
mind of the mutability of the soul, and might thus have per-
ceived that the true God is that immutable nature winch
made the soul itself. Since these things are so, whatever
ridicule such men have poured in their writings against the
plurality of the gods, they have done so rather as compelled
by the secret will of God to confess them, than as trying to
persuade others. If, therefore, any testimonies are adduced
by us from these writings, they are adduced for the confuta-
tion of those who are unwilling to consider from how great
and malignant a power of the demons the singular sacrifice
of the shedding of the most holy blood, and the gift of the
imparted Spirit, can set us free.

32. In xvhat interest the princes of the nations wished false rellQions to continue
among the people subject to them.

Varro says also, concerning the generations of the gods, that
the people have inclined to the poets rather than to the
natural philosophers ; and that therefore their forefathers, —
that is, the ancient Romans, — believed both in the sex and
the generations of the gods, and settled their marriages ;
which certainly seems to have been done for no other cause
except that it was the business of such men as were prudent
and wise to deceive the people in matters of religion, and in
that very thing not only to worship, but also to imitate the
demons, whose greatest lust is to deceive. For just as the
demons cannot possess any but those whom they have de-
ceived with guile, so also men in princely office, not indeed
being just, but like demons, have persuaded the people in the
name of religion to receive as true those things wliich they
themselves knew to be false ; in this way, as it were, binding
them up more firmly in civil society, so that they might in
like manner possess them as subjects. But who that was
weak and unlearned could escape the deceits of both the
princes of the state and the demons \

BOOK IV.] COD THE SUPREME GOVERNOR. 175

33. That the times of all kings and kingdoms are ordained by the judgment
and power of the true God.

Therefore that God, the author and giver of felicity, because
He alone is the true God, Himself gives earthly kingdoms both
to good and bad. Neither does He do this rashly, and, as it were,
fortuitously, — because He is God, not fortune, — but accord-
ing to the order of things and times, which is hidden from us,
but thorouglily known to Himself ; which same order of times,
however, He does not serve as subject to it, but Himself rules
as lord and appoints as governor. Felicity He gives only to
the good. Whether a man be a subject or a Idng makes no
difference : he may equally either possess or not possess it.
And it shall be full in that life where kings and subjects
exist no longer. And therefore earthly kingdoms are given
by Him both to the good and the bad ; lest His worshippers,
still under the conduct of a very weak mind, should covet
these gifts from Him as some great things. And this is the
mystery of the Old Testament, in which the New was hidden,
that there even earthly gifts are promised : those who were
spiritual understanding even then, although not yet openly
declaring, both the eternity which was symbolized by these
earthly things, and in what gifts of God true felicity could be
found.

34. Concerning the kingdom of the Jews, which was founded hy the one and true
God, and preserved hy Him as long as they remained in the true religion.

Therefore, that it might be known that these earthly good
things, after which those pant who cannot imagine better
things, remain in the power of the one God Himself, not of
the many false gods whom the Eomans have formerly be-
lieved worthy of worship, He multiplied His people in Egypt
from being very few, and delivered them out of it by wonder-
ful signs. Nor did their women invoke Lucina when their
offspring was being incredibly multiplied ; and that nation
having increased incredibly. He Himself delivered. He Him-
self saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, who perse-
cuted them, and wished to kill all their infants. Without the
goddess Piumina they sucked; without Cunina they were cradled;
without Educa and Potina they took food and drink ; without
all those puerile gods they were educated ; without the nuptial

17G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IV.

gods they were married ; without tlie worship of Pricapus they
had conjugal intercourse ; without invocation of Neptune the
divided sea opened up a way for them to pass over, and over-
wlielmed with its returning waves their enemies who pursued
tliem. Neither did they consecrate any goddess Mannia when
tliey received manna from heaven ; nor, wlien the smitten rock
poured forth water to them when they thirsted, did they
worship N}Tnphs and Lymphs. Without tlie mad rites of
Mars and Bellona they carried on war ; and while, indeed,
they did not conquer without victory, yet they did not hold it
to be a goddess, but the gift of their God. Without Segetia
they had harvests ; without Bubona, oxen ; honey witliout
^Mellona ; apples witliout Pomona : and, in a word, everything
for which the Romans thought they must supplicate so great
a crowd of false gods, they received much more happily from
the one true God. And if they had not sinned against Him
with impious curiosity, which seduced them like magic arts,
and drew them to strange gods and idols, and at last led them
to kill Clirist, their kingdom would have remained to them,
and would have been, if not more spacious, yet more happy,
than that of Pome. And now that they are dispersed through
almost all lands and nations, it is through the providence of
tliat one true God ; that whereas the images, altars, groves,
and temples of the false gods are everywliere overthrown, and
tlieir sacrifices prohibited, it may be shown from their books
liow this has been foretold by their prophets so long before ;
lest, perhaps, when tlioy should be read in ours, they might
seem to be invented by us. But now, reserving what is to
follow for the following book, we must here set a bound to
the prolixity of tliis one.

BOOK v.] PREFACE. 177

BOOK riFTH.^

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE FIRST DISCUSSES THE DOCTRINE OF FATE, FOR TUE SAKE OF CON-
FUTING THOSE WHO ARE DISPOSED TO REFER TO FATE THE TOWER AND
INCREASE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, WHICH COULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO
FALSE GODS, AS HAS BEEN SHOWN IN THE PRECEDING BOOK. AFTER THAT,
HE PROVES THAT THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GOD's PRESCIENCE
AND OUR FREE WILL. HE THEN SPEAKS OF THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT
ROMANS, AND SHOWS IN WHAT SENSE IT WAS DUE TO THE VIRTUE OF THE
ROMANS THEMSELVES, AND IN HOW FAR TO THE COUNSEL OF GOD, THAT HE
INCREASED THEIR DOMINION, THOUGH THEY DID NOT WORSHIP HIM.
FINALLY, HE EXPLAINS WHAT IS TO BE ACCOUNTED THE TRUE HAPPINESS
OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS.

PREFACE.

SINCE, then, it is established that the complete attainment
of all we desire is that which constitutes felicity, which
is no goddess, but a gift of God, and that therefore men
can worship no god save Him who is able to make them
happy, — and were Felicity herself a goddess, she would with
reason be the only object of worship, — since, I say, this is
estabhshed, let us now go on to consider why God, who is able
to give with all other things those good gifts which can be
possessed by men who are not good, and consequently not
happy, has seen fit to grant such extended and long-continued
dominion to the Eoman empire ; for that this was not effected
by that multitude of false gods which they worshipped, we
have both already adduced, and shall, as occasion offers, yet
adduce considerable proof.

1. That the cause of the Itoman emjyire, and of all hlngdoms, is neither fortui-
tous nor consists in the position of the stars.^

The cause, then, of the greatness of the Eoman empire is
neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or

1 "Written in the year 415.

- On tlie application of astrology to national prosperity, and the success of
certain religions, see Lecky's Rationalism, i. 303.

VOL. I. M

173 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

opiuion of those "who call those things fortuitous which either
have no causes, or such causes as do not proceed from some
intellii::;ible order, and those things fatal which happen in-
dependently of tlie will of God and man, by the necessity of a
certain order. In a word, human kingdoms are established by
divine providence. And if any one attributes their existence to
fate, because he calls the will or the power of God itself by the
name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language.
For why does he not say at first what he will say afterwards,
when some one shall put the question to him. What he means
by fate ? For when men hear that word, according to the
ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it
the virtue of that particular position of the stars which may
exist at the time when any one is born or conceived, which
some separate altogether from the will of God, whilst others
affirm that this also is dependent on that will But those who
are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars deter-
mine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess,
or what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all,
not only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who
wish to be the worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false
gods. For what does this opinion really amount to but this,
that no god whatever is to be worshipped or prayed to ?
Against these, however, our present disputation is not intended
to be directed, but against those who, in defence of those whom
they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. They,
however, who make the position of the stars depend on the
divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man
shall have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if
they think that these same stars have that power conferred
upon them by the supreme power of God, in order that they
may determine these things according to their will, do a great
injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant senate,
and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that
wicked deeds are decreed to be done, — such deeds as that if any
terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned to
overthrow by the decree of the whole human race. AMiat
judgment, then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men,
who is Lord both of the stars and of men, when to these deeds

BOOK v.] ASTROLOGY. 179

a celestial necessity is attributed ? Or, if they do not say that
the stars, though they have indeed received a certain power from
God, who is supreme, determine those things according to their
own discretion, but simply that His commands are fulfilled by
them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such
necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even what
it seemed unworthy that we should tliink concerning the will
of the stars ? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these
things than to effect them, so that that 'position of the stars is,
as it were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things,
— for this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning,
— certainly the mathematicians are not wont so to speak, saying,
for example, Mars in such or such a position signifies a homi-
cide, but makes a homicide. But, nevertheless, though we
grant that they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought
to accept as the proper form of speech that employed by the
philosophers in predicting those things which they think they
discover in the position of the stars, how comes it that they
have never been able to assign any cause w^hy, in the life of
twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in
their professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to
liuman life, also in their very death, there is often so great a
difference, that, as far as these things are concerned, many
entire strangers are more like them than they are like each
other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of
time, but at conception generated by the same act of copula-
tion, and at the same moment ?

2. On the difference in the health of twins.

Cicero says that the famous physician Hippocrates has left
in writing that he had suspected that a certain pair of brothers
were twins, from the fact that they both took ill at once, and
their disease advanced to its crisis and subsided in the same
time in each of them.-^ Posidonius the Stoic, who w^as much
given to astrology, used to explain the fact by supposing that
they had been born and conceived under the same constella-
tion. In this question the conjecture of the physician is by

1 This fact is not recorded in any of the extant works of Hippocrates or Cicero.
Yives supposes it may have found place in Cicero's book, De Fato.

ISO THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

far more worthy to be accepted, and approaches much nearer
to credibility, since, according as the parents were affected in
body at the time of copulation, so might the first elements of
tlie frt'tuses have been affected, so tliat all that was necessary
for their growth and development up till birth having been
supplied from the body of the same mother, they might be
born with like constitutions. Thereafter, nourished in the
same house, on the same kinds of food, where they would have
also the same kinds of air, the same locality, the same quality
of water, — which, according to the testimony of medical science,
have a very great influence, good or bad, on the condition of
bodily health, — and where they would also be accustomed to
the same kinds of exercise, they would have bodily constitu-
tions so similar that they would be similarly affected with sick-
ness at the same time and by the same causes. But, to wish
to adduce that particular position of the stars which existed
at the time when they were born or conceived as the cause of
their being simultaneously affected with sickness, manifests the
greatest arrogance, when so many beings of most diverse kinds,
in the most diverse conditions, and subject to the most diverse
events, may have been conceived and born at the same tune,
and in the same district, lying under the same sk}'. But we
know that twins do not only act differently, and travel to very
different places, but that they also suffer from different kinds
of sickness ; for which Hippocrates would give what is in my
opinion the simplest reason, namely, that, through diversity
of food and exercise, which arises not from the constitution of
the body, but from the inclination of the mind, they may have
come to be different from each other in respect of health,
^loreover, Posidonius, or any other asserter of the fatal in-
fluence of the stars, will have enough to do to find anything
to say to this, if he be unwilling to impose upon the minds of
the uninstructed in things of which they are ignorant. But,
as to what they attempt to make out from that very small
interval of time elapsing between the births of twins, on ac-
count of that point in the heavens where the mark of the
natal hour is placed, and which they call the " horoscope," it
is eitluT dispr()i)urtionately small ti^ the diversity which is
found in the dispositions, actions, habits, and fortunes of twins,

BOOK v.] ASTROLOGY AND TWINS. 181

or it is disproportionately great when compared with the estate
of twins, whether low or high, which is the same for both of
them, the cause for whose greatest difference they place, in
every case, in the hour on which one is born ; and, for this
reason, if the one is born so immediately after the other that
there is no change in the horoscope, I demand an entire simi-
larity in all that respects them both, which can never be found
in the case of any twins. But if the slowness of the birth of
the second give time for a change in the horoscope, I demand
different parents, which twins can never have.

3. Concerning the arguments which Nigidius the mathematician drew from
the potter's wheel, in the question about the birth oj twins.

It is to no purpose, therefore, that that famous fiction about
the potter's wheel is brought forward, which tells of the answer
which Nigidius is said to have given when he was perplexed
with this question, and on account of which he was called
Figulus} For, having whirled round the potter's wheel with
all his strength, he marked it with ink, striking it twice with
the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes seemed to fall on the
very same part of it. Then, when the rotation had ceased,
the marks which he had made were found upon the rim of the
wheel at no small distance apart. Thus, said he, considering
the great rapidity with wliich the celestial sphere revolves,
even though twins were born with as short an interval between
their births as there was between the strokes which I gave this
wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very great
distance in the celestial sphere. Hence, said he, come what-
ever dissimilitudes may be remarked in the habits and fortunes
of twins. This argument is more fragile than the vessels
which are fashioned by the rotation of that wheel For if
there is so much significance in the heavens which cannot be
comprehended by observation of the constellations, that, in the
case of twins, an inheritance may faU to the one and not to
the other, why, in the case of others who are not twins, do
they dare, having examined their constellations, to declare such
things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend,
and to attribute them to the precise moment of the birth of each
individual ? Now, if such predictions in connection with the

' i.e. the potter.

182 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

natal lioiirs of otliers ^vho are not twins are to be vindicated on
the ground that they are founded on the observation of more ex-
tended spaces in the heavens, whilst those very small moments
of time which separated the births of twins, and correspond
to minute portions of celestial space, are to be connected with
trifling things about which the mathematicians are not wont
to be consulted, — for who would consult them as to when he is
to sit, when to walk abroad, when and on what he Ls to dine ?
— how can we be justified in so speaking, when we can point
out such manifold diversity both in the habits, doings, and
destinies of twins ?

4. Concerning the twins Esau and Jacob, wJio were very unlike each otJu^r
both in their character and actions.

In the time of the ancient fathers, to speak concerning
illustrious persons, there were born two twin brothers, the
one so immediately after the other, that the first took hold of
the heel of the second. So. great a difference existed in their
lives and manners, so great a dissimilarity in their actions, so
great a difference in their parents' love lor them respectively,
that the very contrast between them produced even a mutual
hostile antipathy. Do we mean, when we say that they were
so unlike each other, that when the one was walkinii the other
was sitting, when the one was sleeping the other was waking,
— which differences are such as are attributed to those minute
portions of space which cannot be appreciated by those who
note down the position of the stars which exists at the moment
of one's birth, in order that the mathematicians may be con-
sulted concerning it ? One of these twins was for a long time
a hii'ed servant ; the other never served. One of them was
beloved by his mother ; the other was not so. One of them
lost that honour wliich was so much valued amonir their
people ; the other obtained it. And what shall we say of
their wives, their children, and their possessions ? How dif-
ferent they were in respect to all these ! If, therefore, such
things as these are connected with those minute intervals of
time which elapse between the births of twins, and are not to
he attributed to tlie constellations, wherefore are they predicted
in the case of others from the examination of their constella-
tions ? And if, on the other hand, these tilings are said to be

BOOK v.] ASTROLOGY INCONSISTENT. 183

predicted, "because they are connected, not with niinute and
inappreciable moments, but with intervals of time wliich can be
observed and noted down, what purpose is that potter's wheel
to serve in this matter, except it be to whirl round men who
have hearts of clay, in order that they may be prevented from
detecting the emptiness of the talk of the mathematicians ?

5. In what manner the mathematicians are convicted of 2)rofessing a vain science.

Do not those very persons whom the medical sagacity of
Hippocrates led him to suspect to be twins, because their
disease was observed by him to develope to its crisis and to
subside again in the same time in each of them, — do not these,
I say, serve as a sufficient refutation of those who wish to
attribute to the influence of the stars that which was owing:
to a similarity of bodily constitution ? For wherefore were
they both sick of the same disease, and at the same time, and
not the one after the other in the order of their birth ? (for
certainly they could not both be born at the same time.) Or,
if the fact of their having been born at different times by no
means necessarily implies that they must be sick at different
times, why do they contend that the difference in the time of
their births was the cause of their difference in other things ?
AVhy could they travel in foreign parts at different times,
marry at different times, beget children at different times, and
do many other things at different times, by reason of their
having been born at different times, and yet could not, for
the same reason, also be sick at different times ? For if a
difference in the moment of birth changed the horoscope, and
occasioned dissimilarity in all other things, why has that
simultaneousness which belonged to their conception remained
in their attacks of sickness ? Or, if the destinies of health
are involved in the time of conception, but those of other
things be said to be attached to the time of birth, they ought
not to predict anything concerning health from examination
of the constellations of birth, when the hour of conception is
not also given, that its constellations may be inspected. But
if they say that they predict attacks of sickness without ex-
amining the horoscope of conception, because these are indi-
cated by the moments of birth, how could they inform either

IS 4 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

of these twins when he would be sick, from the horoscope of
his birth, when the other also, who had not the same horoscope
of birth, must of necessity fall sick at the same time ? Again,
I ask, if the distance of time between the births of twins is
so great as to occasion a difference of their constellations on
account of the difference of their horoscopes, and therefore of
all the cardinal points to "vvhich so much influence is attributed,
that even from such change there comes a difference of destiny,
how is it possible that this should be so, since they cannot
have been conceived at different times ? Or, if two conceived
at the same moment of time could have different destinies
with respect to their births, why may not also two born at
the same moment of time have different destinies for life and
for death ? For if the one moment in wliich both were con-
ceived did not hinder that the one should be born before the
other, why, if two are born at the same moment, should any-
tliing liinder them from dying at the same moment ? If a
simultaneous conception allows of twins being differently
affected in the icomh, why should not simultaneousness of
birth allow of any tw^o individuals having different fortunes
in the world ? and thus w^ould all the fictions of tliis art, or
rather delusion, be swept away. "WHiat strange circumstance
is this, that two cliildren conceived at the same time, nay, at
the same moment, under the same position of the stars, have
different fates which bring them to different hours of birth,
whilst two children, born of two different mothers, at the same
moment of time, under one and the same position of the stars,
cannot have different fates which shall conduct them by neces-
sity to diverse manners of life and of death ? Are they at
conception as yet without destinies, because they can only
have them if tlu^y be born ? What, therefore, do they mean
when they say that, if the hour of the conception be found,
many tilings can be predicted by these astrologers ? from
which also arose that story which is reiterated by some, that
a certain sage chose an hour in which to lie with his wife, in
order to secure his begetting an illustrious son. From tliis
opinion also came that answer of Posidonius, the great astro-
loger and also pliilosopher, concerning those twins who were
attacked with sickness at the same time, namely, " That this

BOOK v.] TWINS OF DIFFERENT SEX. 185

had happened to them because they were conceived at the
same time, and born at the same time." For certainly he
added " conception," lest it should be said to him that they
could not both be horn at the same time, Imowing that at any
rate they must both have been conceived at the same time ;
wishing thus to show that he did not attribute the fact of
their being similarly and simultaneously affected with sickness
to the similarity of their bodily constitutions as its proximate
cause, but that he held that even in respect of the similarity
of their health, they were bound together by a sidereal con-
nection. If, therefore, the time of conception has so much to
do with the similarity of destinies, these same destinies ought
not to be changed by the circumstances of birth ; or, if the
destinies of twins be said to be changed because they are
born at different times, why should we not rather understand
that they had been already changed in order that they might
be born at different times ? Does not, then, the will of men
living in the world change the destinies of birth, when the
order of birth can change the destinies they had at conception ?

6. Concerning twins of different sexes.

But even in the very conception of twins, which certainly
occurs at the same moment in the case of both, it often hap-
pens that the one is conceived a male, and the other a female.
I know two of different sexes who are twins. Both of them
are alive, and in the flower of their age; and though they
resemble each other in body, as far as difference of sex will
permit, still they are very different in the whole scope and
purpose of their lives (consideration being had of those differ-
ences which necessarily exist between the lives of males and
females), — the one holding the office of a count, and being
almost constantly away from home with the army in foreign
service, the other never leaving her country's soil, or her
native district. Still more, — and this is more incredible, if the
destinies of the stars are to be believed in, though it is not
wonderful if we consider the wills of men, and the free gifts
of God, — he is married ; she is a sacred virgin : he has begotten
a numerous offspring ; she has never even married. But is
not the virtue of the horoscope very great ? I think I have
said enough to show the absurdity of that. But, say those

186 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

astrologers, \vhatever be the virtue of the horoscope in other
respects, it is certainly of significance with respect to birth.
But why not also with respect to conception, which takes
place undoubtedly with one act of copulation ? And, indeed,
60 great is the force of nature, that after a woman has once
conceived, she ceases to be liable to conception. Or were
they, perhaps, changed at birth, either he into a male, or she
into a female, because of the difference in their horoscopes ?
But, whilst it is not altogether absurd to say that certain
sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in
bodies alone, — as, for instance, we see that the seasons of the
year come round by the approaching and receding of the sun,
and that certain kinds of things are increased in size or
diminished by the waxings and wanings of the moon, such
as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful tides of the ocean, —
it does not follow that the loills of men are to be made subject
to the position of the stars. The astrologers, however, when
they wish to bind our actions also to the constellations, only
set us on investigating whether, even in these bodies, the
changes may not be attributable to some other than a sidereal
cause. For what is there which more intimately concerns a
body than its sex ? And yet, under the same position of the
stars, twins of different sexes may be conceived, ^^^lerefore,
what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that
the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them
at the time of conception, could not cause that the one child
should not have been of a different sex from her brother, with
whom she had a common constellation, whilst the position of
the stars which existed at the hour of their birth could cause
that she should be separated from him by the great distance
between marriage and holy virginity ?

7. Concerning the choosing of a day for marriage, or for planting, or soicing.

Now, will any one bring forward this, tliat in choosing
certiiin particular days for particular actions, men bring about
certain new destinies for their actions ? That man, for instance,
according to this doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious
son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore, being a man
of learning, he chose an hour in which to lie with his wife.

BOOK v.] LUCKY DAYS. 187

He made, therefore, a destiny which he did not have before,
and from that destiny of his own making something began to
be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of his natal
hour. Oh, singular stupidity ! A day is chosen on which to
marry ; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be
chosen, the marriage may faU on an unlucky day, and turn
out an unhappy one. What then becomes of what the stars
have already decreed at the hour of birth ? Can a man be
said to change by an act of choice that which has already
been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has
determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by
another power ? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under
heaven, are subject to the influence of the stars, why do they
choose some days as suitable for planting vines or trees, or for
sowing grain, other days as suitable for taming beasts on, or
for putting the males to the females, that the cows and mares
may be impregnated, and for such-like things ? If it be said
that certain chosen days have an influence on these things,
because the constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies,
animate and inanimate, according to differences in moments
of time, let it be considered what innumerable multitudes of
beings are born or arise, or take their origin at the very same
instant of time, which come to ends so different, that they
may persuade any little boy that these observations about
days are ridiculous. For who is so mad as to dare affirm
that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes,
worms, have each separately their own moments of birth or
commencement ? Nevertheless, men are wont, in order to
try the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the
constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose
birth they diligently observe at home with a view to this
discovery ; and they prefer those mathematicians to all others,
who say from the inspection of the constellations that they
indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man. They also
dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a wool-bearing
beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one fit for
the plough, or for watching a house ; for the astrologers are
also tried with respect to the fates of dogs, and their answers
concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration on the

188 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

part of those wlio consult tliem. They so deceive men as to
make tliem think that during the birth of a man the "births
of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes
to life at the same time that he is being bom, under the same
region of the heavens. And if this be admitted with respect
to the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must ascend
from flies till it lead them up to camels and elephants. Nor
are they willing to attend to this, that when a day has been
chosen whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into the
ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up,
come to perfection, and ripen simultaneously ; and yet, of aU
the ears which are coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some
are destroyed by mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and
some are pulled by men. How can they say that aU these
had their different constellations, which they see coming to so
different ends ? Will they confess that it is folly to choose
days for such things, and to aflirm that they do not come
within the sphere of the celestial decree, wliilst they subject
men alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has
bestowed free wills ? All these things being considered, we
have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give
very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the
occult inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose care
it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in
tlicm, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal
influence of tlie stars, and not to their marking and inspecting
of horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality
has no existence.

8. Concerning those who call by the name of fate, not the position of the stars,
but the connection of causes which depends on the will of God.

But, as to those who call by the name of fiite, not the dis-
position of the stars as it may exist when any creatui'e is
conceived, or born, or commences its existence, but the whole
connection and train of causes which makes everytliing become
wliat it does become, there is no need that I should labour
and strive witli them in a merely verbal controversy, since
they attri])ute the so-called order and connection of causes to
tlie will and power of God most high, who is most rightly
and most truly believed to know all things before they come

BOOK v.] FATE. 189

to pass, and to leave nothing unordained ; from whom are all
powers, although the wills of all are not from Him. Now,
that it is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power
extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call
fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake
not, Annoeus Seneca is the author : —

" Father supreme, Thou ruler of the lofty heavens,
Lead me where'er it is Thy pleasure ; I will give
A prompt obedience, making no delay,
Lo ! here I am. Promptly I come to do Thy sovereign will ;
If Thj' command shall thwart my inclination, I will still
Follow Thee groaning, and the work assigned,
With all the suffering of a mind repugnant,
"Will perform, being evil ; which, had I been good,
I should have undertaken and performed, though hard,
With virtuous cheerfulness. ■
The Fates do lead the man that follows willing ;
But the man that is unwilling, him they drag."*

Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that " fate " which
he had before called " the will of the Father supreme," whom,
he says, he is ready to obey that he may be led, being willing,
not dragged, being unwilling, since "the Fates do lead the
man that follows willing, but the man that is unwilling, him
they drag."

The followin£f Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into
Latin, also favour this opinion : —

*' Such are the minds of men, as is the light
Wliicli Father Jove himself doth pour
Illustrious o'er the fruitful earth. "^

iSTot that Cicero wishes that a poetical sentiment should
have any weight in a question like this ; for when he says
that the Stoics, when asserting the power of fate, were in the
habit of using these verses from Homer, he is not treating
concerning the opinion of that poet, but concerning that of
those philosophers, since by these verses, which they quote in
connection with the controversy which they hold about fate,
is most distinctly manifested what it is which they reckon
fate, since they call by the name of Jupiter him whom they
reckon the supreme god, from whom, they say, hangs the
whole chain of fates.

1 Epist. 107. ^Odyssey, xviii. 13G, 137.

100 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

0. Concerning the fureknoicledge of God and the free icUl of man, in oppos'Ulun
to the definition of Cicero.

The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task
of refuting the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could
effect anything against them in argument unless he had first
demolished divination.^ And this he attempts to accomplish
by denying that there is any knowledge of future things,
and maintains with all his might that there is no such know-
ledge either in God or man, and that there is no prediction
of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God,
and attempts by vain arguments, and by opposing to himself
certain oracles very easy to be refuted, to overthrow all pro-
phecy, even such as is clearer than the light (though even
these oracles are not refuted by him).

But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his
argument is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy
and refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more toler-
able who assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who
deny the foreknowledge of future events. Por, to confess that
God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has fore-
knowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. This
Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the
doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, " The fool hath
said in his heart. There is no God."^ Tliat, however, he did
not do in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive
such an opinion would be ; and, therefore in his book on the
nature of the gods,^ he makes Cotta dispute concerning this
against the Stoics, and preferred to give his o^v^l opinion in
favour of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of
the Stoical position, rather than in favour of Cotta, who main-
tained that no divinity exists. However, in his book on
divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the
doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he
seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of
fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that,
the knowledge of future tilings being once conceded, fate fol-
lows as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied

But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the
* De Divinal. iu ' Ps. xiv. 1. ' B >ok iii.

BOOK v.] FOREKNOWLEDGE AND FREE WILL. 191

philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may
confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His
will, supreme power, and prescience. Neither let us be afraid
lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by will,
because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that
v/e would do it. It was this which Cicero was afraid of, and
therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained
that aU things do not come to pass by necessity, although
they contended that all things happen according to destiny.
What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future
things ? Doubtless it was this, — that if all future things
have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which
they have been foreknown ; and if they come to pass in this
order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God ;
and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes,
for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient
cause. But if there is a certain order of causes according to
which everything happens which does happen, then by fate,
says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be
so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no
such thing as freedom of will ; and if we grant that, says he,
the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are
laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, ex-
hortations had recourse to ; and there is no justice whatever
in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments
for the wicked. And that consequences so disgraceful, and
absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not foUow, Cicero
chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts
up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice be-
tween two things, either that something is in our o\vti power,
or that there is foreknowledge, — both of which cannot be true ;
but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He
therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who con-
sulted very much and very skilfully for the good of humanity,
of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which
he denied the foreknowledge of future things ; and thus, wish-
ing to make men free, he makes them sacrilegious. But the
religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains
both by the faith of piety. But how so ? says Cicero ; for the

102 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

knowledge of future things being granted, there follows a chain
of consequences which ends in this, that there can be nothing
depending on our own free wills. And further, if there is
anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by
the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the conclusion
that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For -sve go
backwards through all the steps in the following order : —
If there is free will, all things do not happen according to
fate; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is
not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain
order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things fore-
known by God, — for things cannot come to pass except they
are preceded by efficient causes, — but, if there is no fixed and
certain order of causes foreknown by God, aU things cannot
be said to happen according as He foreknew that they w^ould
happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen
just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says
he, in God any foreknowdedge of future events.

Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of
reason, w^e assert both that God knows all things before
they come to pass, and that we do by our free will what-
soever we know and feel to be done by us only because
we will it. But that aU things come to pass by fate, we
do not say; nay we afidrm that nothing comes to pass by
fate ; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont
to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the
position of the stars at the time of each one's conception
or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delu-
sion. But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency
is attributed to the w^ill of God, we neither deny nor do -sve
designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may
understand fat<3 to mean that wdiich is spoken, deriving it from
/an, to speak ; for we cannot deny that it is written in the
sacred Scriptures, " God hath spoken once ; these two things
have I heard, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto
Thee, 0 God, belongeth mercy: for Tliou wilt render unto
every man according to his works." ^ Now the expression,
" Once hath lie spoken," is to be understood as meaning " im-

» Ts. Ixii. n, 12.

BOOK v.] THE WILL AND CAUSES. 193

movahlyl' that is, unchangeably hath He spoken, inasmuch as
He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and all
things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate
in the sense it bears when derived from /a W, to speak, had it
not already come to be understood in another sense, into which
I am unwilling that the hearts of men should unconsciously
slide. But it does not follow that, though there is for God a
certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing
depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills
themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain
to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human
7/ills are also causes of human actions ; and He who foreknew
all the causes of things would certainly among those causes
not have been ignorant of our wills. For even that very con-
cession which Cicero himself makes is enough to refute him
in this argument. For what does it help him to say that
nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is
not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and
a voluntary cause ? It is sufficient that he confesses that
whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say
that those causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere
name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we
attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of
sphits of some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by
no means separate them from the will of Him who is the author
and framer of all nature. But now as to voluntary causes.
They are referable either to God, or to angels, or to men, or to
animals of whatever description, if indeed those instinctive
movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in accord-
ance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things,
are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of
angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call
the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the
angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I
mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from
this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things
Avhich come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as
belong to that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air
or wind is called sphit, but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not
VOL. L N

104 THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK V.

the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which quickens
all things, and is the creator of every body, and of every
created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In II is
supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all
created spirits, heljiing the good, judging the evil, controlling
all, gi'anting power to some, not granting it to others. For,
as He is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower
of all powers, not of aU wills ; for wicked wills are not from
Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to
bodies, they are more subject to wills : some to our wiQs, by
which I mean the wills of all living mortal creatures, but
more to the wills of men than of beasts. But all of them are
most of all subject to the will of God, to whom all wills also
are subject, since they have no power except what He has
bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which
makes but is not made, is God ; but all other causes both
make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and especially
the rational. Material causes, therefore, which may rather
be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned
among efficient causes, because they can only do what the
wiUs of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of
causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate
that there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills,
when our wills themselves have a very important place in the
order of causes ? Cicero, then, contends with those who call
this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself
by the name of fate ; to which we have an abhorrence, espe-
cially on account of the word, which men have become ac-
customed to understand as meaning what is not true. But,
whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain,
antl perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his
opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that
God exists, — which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has
laboured to do, in his book De Natura Dconim, — or if he
confesses that Ho exists, but denies that He is prescient of
future things, what is that but just " the fool saying in his
heart there is no God ?" For one who is not prescient of all
future things is not God. AMierefore our wills also have just
so much power as God willed and foreknew that they should

BOOK v.] THE WILL AND NECESSITY. 195

have ; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it
withm most certain limits ; and whatever they are to do, they
are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is in-
fallible foreknew that they would have the power to do it,
and would do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the
name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that fate
belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who
has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our wiU
is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual
application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call
Fate.

10. Whether our loills are ruled hy necef^sity.

Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread
of which the Stoics laboured to make such distinctions among
the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain
things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to
it. Among those things which they wished not to be subject
to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would
not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be
called our necessity which is not in our power, but even though
we be unwillinoj effects what it can effect, — as, for instance, the
necessity of death, — it is manifest that our wills by which we
live uprightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity;
for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should
certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing
itself, — for if we will, it is ; if we wiU not, it is not, — for we
should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define neces-
sity to be that according to which we say that it is necessary
that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and
such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of
that necessity taking away the freedom of our will For we
do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under
necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should
live for ever, and foreknow all things ; as neither is His power
diminished when we say that He cannot die or faU into error, —
for this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were
possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly
He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die
nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account

196 THE CITY OF r.oD. [book v.

of His doing wliat He wills, not on account of His suffering
what He wills not ; for if that should befall Him, He would by
no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some
things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also,
when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will
by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond
doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity
which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as icills, and
do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would
not be done if 'sve were unwilling. But when any one suffers
anything, being unwilling, by the will of another, even in that
case will retains its essential validity, — we do not mean the
will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it
into tho power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but
not be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a
more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there
had existed will, and that not the will of the other party, but
the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish
what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man suffers contrary
to his own will, he owAit not to attribute to the will of men,
or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will
who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that
because God foreknew what would be in the power of our
wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our
wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing.
Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of
our wills did not foreknow nothing, but sometliing, assuredly,
even though He did forcloiow, there is something in the power
of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either,
retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of
the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He
is prescient of future tilings, which is impious. But we em-
brace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The
former, that we may believe well ; the latter, that we may live
well For he lives ill who docs not believe well concerning
God. Wherefore, bo it far from us, in order to maintain our
freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are
or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are
enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vitu-

bo'dk v.] universal providence of god. 197

perations are had recourse to ; for these also He foreknew, and
they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they
would be of Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things
which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered
them ; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good
deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not there-
fore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it
cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins
when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is in-
fallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else
would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he
wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this
did God foreknow.

11. Concerning the universal providence of God in the laws of which all things
are comprehended.

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy
Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and
maker of every soul and of every body ; by whose gift all are
happy who are happy through verity and not through vanity;
who made man a rational animal consisting of soul and body,
who, when he sinned, neither permitted him to go unpunished,
nor left him without mercy ; who has given to the good and
to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in
common with trees, sensuous life in common with brutes,
intellectual life in common with angels alone ; from whom
is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are
measure, number, weight; from whom is everything which
has an existence in nature, of whatever kind it be, and of
whatever value ; from whom are the seeds of forms and the
forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms ; who
gave also to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive
fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of
its parts ; who also to the irrational soul has given memory,
sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these,
has given intelligence and will ; who has not left, not to speak
of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails
of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather
of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree,
without an harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among

198 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

all its parts ; — that God can never be believed to have left
the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside
of the laws of His providence.

12. By ichat virtues (he ancient Romans merited that the true God, although they
did not wortiliip Ilim, should enlarge their empire.

AVlicrefore let us go on to consider what virtues of the
Pioraans they were which the true God, in whose power are
also the kingdoms of the earth, condescended to help in
order to raise the empire, and also for what reason He did so.
And, in order to discuss this question on clearer ground, we
have WTitten the former books, to show that the power of
those gods, who, they thought, were to be w^orshipped -svith
such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter ;
and also what we have already accomplished of the present
volume, to refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might
have been already persuaded that the Eoman empire was not
extended and preserved by the worship of these gods, might
still be attributing its extension and preservation to some kind
of fate, rather than to the most powerful will of God most
high. The ancient and primitive Piomans, therefore, though
their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with
the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods,
and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have never-
theless this commendation bestowed on them by their historian,
that they were " greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous
of great glory, and content with a moderate fortune."^ Glory
they most ardently loved : for it they wished to live, for it
thoy did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed
by the strength of their passion for that one thing. At length
tlieir country itself, because it seemed inglorious to serve, but
glorious to rule and to command, they first earnestly desired
to be free, and then to be mistress. Hence it was that, not
enduring the domination ot kings, they put the government
into tlie hands of two chiefs, holding ollice for a year, who
were called consuLs, not kings or lurds.^ But royal jionip

» Sallu.st, Cat. vii.

' Augustine notes that the name consul is doriveJ from consulere, and thtis
signifips n more benign rule than that of a rex (from rega-e), or dominus (from
Uuminari).

BOOK v.] THE ROMAN VIRTUES. 199

seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler {regen-
tis), or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for the
public good) (consulentis), but rather with the haughtiness of
a lord (dominantis). King Tarquin, therefore, having been
banished, and the consular government having been instituted,
it followed, as the same author already alluded to says in his
praises of the Eomans, that " the state grew with amazing-
rapidity after it had obtained liberty, so great a desire of
glory had taken possession of it." That eagerness for praise
and desire of glory, then, was that which accomplished those
many wonderful things, laudable, doubtless, and glorious ac-
cording to human judgment. The same Sallust praises the
great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Csesar,
saying that for a long time the republic had no one great in
virtue, but that within his memory there had been these two
men of eminent virtue, and very different pursuits. Now,
among the praises which he pronounces on Csesar he put
tliis, that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new
war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue
might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer ot men of
heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations
to war, and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge,
so that there might be occasion for the display of their
valour. This, forsooth, is what that desire of praise and
thirst for glory did. Wlierefore, by the love of liberty in the
first place, afterwards also by that of domination and through
the desire of praise and glory, they achieved many great things ;
and their most eminent poet testifies to their having been
prompted by all these motives :

** Porsenna there, with pride elate,
Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate ;
With arms he hems the city in,
iEneas' sous stand firm to win."*

At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die
bravely or to live free ; but when liberty was obtained, so
great a desire of glory took possession of them, that liberty
alone was not enough unless domination also should be sought,

^ jEiieid, viii. 646.

200 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

their great ambition being that which the same poet puts into
the mouth of Jupiter :

" Nay, Juno's self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, ami heaven in arms,
Shall change for smiles her moody frown,
And vie with me in zeal to crown
Rome's sons, the nation of the gown.
So stands my will. There comes a day,
While Rome's great ages hold their way,
"When old Assaracus's sons
Shall quit them on the myrmidons.
O'er Phthia and Mycenaj reign,
And humble Argos to their chain. "^

Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future,
whilst, in reality, he was only himself passing in review in his
own mind things which were already done, and which were
beheld by him as present realities. But I have mentioned
them with the intention of showing that, next to liberty, the
Itomans so higldy esteemed domination, that it received a
place among those things on which they bestowed the greatest
praise. Hence also it is that that poet, preferring to the arts
of other nations those arts which peculiarly belong to the
Eomans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and of
subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,

*' Others, belike, with happier grace,
From bronze or stone shall call the face.
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies.
And tell when planets set or rise ;
But Roman thou, do thou control

The nations far and wide ;
Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes,
Show pity to the humbled soul.

And crush the sons of pride."'

These arts they exercised witli tlie more skill the less they
gave tliemselvcs up to pleasures, and to enervation of body
and mind in coveting and amassing riches, and through tliese
corrupting morals, by extorting them from the miserable
citizens and lavi.shing them on base stage-players. Hence
these men of base character, who abounded wlien Sallust
wrote and Virgil sang these tilings, did not seek after honours

» ^neid, i. 279. ' Ibid. vi. 817.

COOK v.] KOMAN THIRST FOR GLORY. 201

and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. Where-
fore the same says, " But at first it was rather ambition than
avarice that stirred the minds of men, which vice, however, is
nearer to virtue. For glory, honour, and power are desired
alike by the good man and by the ignoble ; but the former,"
he says, " strives onward to them by the true way, whilst
the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them
by fraud and deceit."^ And what is meant by seeking the
attainment of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek
them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue ; for the good
and the ignoble man alike desire these things, but the good
man strives to overtake them by the true way. The way is
virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of possession —
namely, to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Eoman mind, is indicated even
by the temples of their gods; for they built in very close
proximity the temples of Virtue and Honour, worsliipping
as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand what
they who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to
what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as
to the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honour,
and strove to possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a
higher kind is bestowed upon Cato, for he says of him,
" The less he sought glory, the more it followed him." ^ We
say praise of a higher kind ; for the glory with the desire
of which the Eomans burned is the judgment of men think-
ing well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is
content with no human judgment save that of one's own con-
science. Whence the apostle says, " For this is our glory,
the testimony of our conscience."^ And in another place he
says, " But let every one prove his own work, and then he
shall have glory in himself, and not in another."* That glory,
honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for them-
selves, and to which the good sought to attain by good arts,
should not be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them.
For there is no true virtue except that which is directed
towards that end in which is the highest and ultimate good

1 Sallust, in Cat. c. xi. a Sallust, in Cat. c, 54.

3 2 Cor. i. 12. 4 Gal. vi. 4.

202 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

of man. AVlierefore even the honours ^vhich Cato sought he
ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have con-
ferred them on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.

But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he
whose virtue was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue.
"Wherefore, let us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to dis-
cover what was the judgment he had formed concerning the
condition of the state both then and in former times. " I do
not think," he says, " that it was by arms that our ancestors
made the republic great from being small. Had that been the
case, the republic of our day would have been by far more
flourishing than that of their times, for the number of our
allies and citizens is far greater ; and, besides, we possess a
fiir greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did.
But it was other things than these that made them great, and
we have none of them : industry at home, just government
without, a mind free in deliberation, addicted neither to crime
nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and avarice,
poverty in the state, opulence among citizens ; we laud riches,
we follow laziness ; there is no difference made between the
good and the bad ; all the rewards of virtue are got possession
of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every individual con-
sults only for his o\vn good, when ye are the slaves of pleasure
at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no wonder
that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic."^

lie who hears these w^ords of Cato or of Sallust probably
thinks that such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was
applicable to all of them, or, at least, to very many of them.
It is not so ; otherwise the things which Cato himsulf writes,
and which I have quoted in the second book of this work,
would not be true. In that passage he says, that even from
the very beginning ot the state wrongs were committed by
the more powerful, which led to the separation of the people
from the fathers, besides which there were other internal dis-
sensions ; and tlie only time at which there existed a just and
moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings,
and that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of
Tarquin, and were carrying on the grievous war which had

» Sallust, in Cat. c. 52.

BOOK v.] CAUSES OF THE ROMAN POWER. 203

been undertaken on his account against Etruria ; "but after-
wards the fathers oppressed the people as slaves, flogged them
as the kiuGfs had done, drove them from their land, and, to
the exclusion of all others, held the government in their own
hands alone. And to these discords, whilst the fathers were
Avishing to rule, and the people were unwilling to serve, the
second Punic war put an end ; for again great fear began to
press upon their disquieted minds, holding them back from
those distractions by another and greater anxiety, and bring-
ing them back to civil concord. But the great things which
were then achieved were accomplished through the admini-
stration of a few men, who were good in their own way. And
by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which
first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated
them, it waxed greater and greater. And this the same his-
torian affirms, Avlien he says that, reading and hearing of the
many illustrious achievements of the Eoman people in peace
and in war, by land and by sea, he wished to understand what
it was by which these great things were specially sustained.
For he knew that very often the Eomans had with a small
company contended with great legions of the enemy ; and he
knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars
with opulent kings. And he says that, after having given
the matter much consideration, it seemed evident to him that
the pre-eminent virtue of a few citizens had achieved the
whole, and that that explained how poverty overcame wealth,
and small numbers great multitudes. But, he adds, after that
the state had been corrupted by luxury and indolence, again
the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear the vices
of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even the praises
of Cato are only applicable to a few ; for only a few were
possessed of that virtue which leads men to pursue after
glory, honour, and power by the true way, — that is, by virtue
itself. This industry at home, of which Cato speaks, was the
consequence of a desire to enrich the public treasury, even
though the result should be poverty at home ; and therefore,
when he speaks of the evil arising out of the corruption of
morals, he reverses the expression, and says, " Poverty in the
state, riches at home."

204 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

13. Conorning the love of praise, which, though it w a vice, is reckoned a virtue,
because by it greater vice is restrained.

Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illus-
trious for a long time, it pleased God that there should also
arise a Western empire, which, thou;^di later in time, should
be more illustrious in extent and greatness. And, in order
that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed among
other nations, He purposely granted it to such men as, for the
sake of honour, and praise, and glory, consulted well for their
country, in whose glory they sought their own, and whose
safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own, suppressing
the desire of wealth and many other vices for this one vice,
namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest percep-
tion who recognises that even the love of praise is a vice ;
nor has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who
says,

" You're bloated hy ambition ? take advice :
Yon book will case you if you read it thrice."*

And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with
the desire of repressing the passion for domination :

" Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast
A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join
To distant Gadcs Lybia, and thus
Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian. " -

Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by tlie
])Ower of the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety,
or by the love of intelligible beauty, but by desire of human
praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love of
such praise, are not indeed yet holy, but only less base.
P^'cn Tully was not able to conceal this fact; for, in the
same books which he wrote, De Ecpuhlica, when speaking
concerning the education of a chief of the state, who ought,
lie says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say that their
ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through
desire of glory. So far, tlierefore, from resisting this vice, they
oven thought that it ought to hc excited and kindled up, sup-
])osing that that would be beneficial to the republic. But not
even in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate tliis

* Horace, Kjiist. i. 1. 3'3, 37. * llor. Carin. ii. 2.

BOOK v.] LOVE OF FRAISE. 205

poisonous opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than
day. For when he is speaking of those studies which are to
be pursued with a view to the trioe good, and not with the
vainglorious desire of human praise, he introduces the follow-
ing universal and general statement :

"Honour nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of
studies by glory ; and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally
discredited."^

14. Concerning the eradication of the love of human praise, because all the glory
of the righteous is in God.

It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire
than to yield to it, for the purer one is from this defile-
ment, the liker is he to God; and, though this vice be not
thoroughly eradicated from his heart, — for it does not cease to
tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress
in virtue, — at any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by
the love of righteousness, so that, if there be seen anywhere
"lying neglected things which are generally discredited," if
they are good, if they are right, even the love of human
praise may blush and yield, to the love of truth. For so
hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the love of glory be
greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the
Lord said, " How can ye believe, who look for glory from one
another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone ? '" ^
Also, concerning some who had believed on Him, but were
afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says, " They loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God;"^ w^hich did
not the holy apostles, who, when they proclaimed the name
of Christ in those places where it was not only discredited,
and therefore neglected, — according as Cicero says, " Those
things are always neglected which are generally discredited,"
— but was even held in the utmost detestation, holding: to
what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also
the physician of minds, " If any one shaU deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven,
and before the angels of God,"* amidst maledictions and
reproaches, and most grievous persecutions and cruel punish-

^ Tusc. Qucest. i. 2. 2 Jq]^j^ y^ 44^

3 JohiJ xii. 43. ■* Malt, x, 33.

20G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

incnts, were not deterred from the preacliing of human salva-
tion by tlie noise of human indignation. And when, as they
did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives, conquering,
as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into tliem the peace
of righteousness, gi-eat glory followed tliem in the church
of Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their
virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by
whose grace they were what they were, tliey sought to kindle,
also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose good
they consulted, to the love of Kim, by wliom they could be
made to be what they themselves were. For their Master had
taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human
glory, saying, " Take heed that ye do not your righteousness
before men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not
have a reward from your Father who is in heaven."^ But
again, lest, understanding this wrongly, they should, through
lear of pleasing men, be less useful through concealing their
goodness, showing for what end they ought to make it kno^vn,
He says, " Let your works shine before men, that they may
see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in
heaven."^ Not, observe, "that ye may be seen by them, that
is, in order that their eyes may be directed upon you," — for
of yourselves ye are nothing, — but " that they may glorify
your Father who is in heaven," by fixing their regards on
Avhom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs
followed, who surpassed the Sca^volas, and the Curtiuses, and
the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety,
and also in the greatness of their number. But since those
Bomans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as
the end ot all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety,
and a kinc^'dom, not in heaven, but in earth, — not in the sphere
of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession,
where tlie dead are succeeded by the dying, — what else but
glory should they love, by which they wislied even after
deatli to live in the mouths of their admirers ?

15. Concerning the temporal reward tchich God granted to the virtues of t lie

Jiomanji.

Xow, therefore, with regard to those to wliom God did not

I Matt. vi. 1. » Mutt. V. 16.

BOOK v.] ROMANS AN EXAMPLE TO CHRISTIANS. 207

purpose to give eternal life with His holy angels in His own
celestial city, to the society of which that true piety which
does not render the service of religion, which the Greeks call
\aTp6La, to any save the true God conducts, if He had also
withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent
empire, a reward would not have been rendered to their good
arts, — that is, their virtues, — by which they sought to attain
so great glory. For as to those who seem to do some good
that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says,
"Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward."^
So also these despised their own private affairs for the sake
of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted
for the good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted
neither to what their laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust.
By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to
honours, power, and glory ; they were honoured among almost
all nations ; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many
nations ; and at this day, both in literature and history, they
are glorious among almost all nations. There is no reason why
they should complain against the justice of the supreme and
true God, — " they have received their reward."

16. Concerning the reward of the holy citizens of the celestial city, to whom the
example of the virtues of the Roman are useful.

But the reward of the saints is far different, who even
here endured reproaches for that city of God which is hate-
ful to the lovers of this world. That city is eternal. There
none are born, for none die. There is true and full felicity,
— not a goddess, but a gift of God. Thence we receive the
pledge of faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its
beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the evil, but
the Sun of Eighteousness protects the good alone. There no
great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury
by suffering privations at home, for there is the common
treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the
sake of recompensing the citizens of Eome that her empire
and glory had been so signally extended, but also that the
citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here,
might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and

» Matt. vi. 2.

208 TlIE CITY OF GOD. [bOOK V.

see what a love they owe to the supernal country on account
of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much beloved
by its citizens on account of human glory,

17. To what pro ft t the liomnns carried on wars, and how murk they contributed
to (he well-being of those xchom they conquered.

For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is
spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under
whose government a dying man lives, if they who govern do
not force him to impiety and iniquity ? Did the Romans at
all harm those nations, on whom, when subjugated, they im-
posed their laws, except in as far as that was accomplished
with great slaughter in war ? Kow, had it been done with
consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater
success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for
neither did the Romans themselves live exempt from those
laws which they imposed on others. Had this been done
without Mars and Bellona, so that there should have been no
place for victory, no one conquering where no one had fought,
would not the condition of the Romans and of the other
nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been
done at once which afterwards was done most humanely and
mo.'rt acceptably, namely, the admission of all to the rights of
Roman citizens who belonged to the Roman empire, and if
that had been made the privilege of all wliich was formerly
the privilege of a few, with this one condition, that the
humbler class who had no lands of tlieir own should live at
the public expense — an alimentary impost, which would have
been paid with a much better grace by them into the hands
ot good administrators of the republic, of wliich they were
members, by their own hearty consent, than it would have
been paid with had it to be extorted from them as conquered
men ? For I do not see what it makes for the safety, good
morals, and certainly not for the dignity, of men, that some
have conqueretl and otliers have been con(piered, except that
it yields them tluit most insane pomp of human glor}', in
which " they have received their reward," who burned with
excessive desire of it, anel carried on most eager ware. For
do not their lands pay tribute ? Have they any privilege of
learning what the others are not privileged to learn ? Are

BOOK v.] ROMAN PATRIOTISM. 209

tliere not many senators in the other countries who do not
even know Eome by sight ? Take away outward show/ and
what are all men after all but men ? But even though the
perversity of the age should permit that all the better men
should be more highly honoured than others, neither thus
should human honour be held at a great price, for it is smoke
which has no weight. But let us avail ourselves even in
these things of the kindness of God. Let us consider how
great things they despised, how great things they endured,
wdiat lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who
merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues ; and
let this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as
that city in which it has been promised us to reign as far
surpasses this one as heaven is distant from the earth, as
eternal life surpasses temporal joy, solid glory empty praise,
or the society of angels the society of mortals, or the glory of
Him who made the sun and moon the light of the sun and
moon, the citizens of so great a country may not seem to
themselves to have done anytliing very great, if, in order to
obtain it, they have done some good works or endured some
evils, when those men for this terrestrial country already ob-
tained, did such great things, suffered such great things. And
especially are all these things to be considered, because the
remission of sins which collects citizens to the celestial country
lias something in it to which a shado^vy resemblance is found
in that asylum of Eomulus, whither escape from the punish-
ment of all manner of crimes congregated that multitude with
which the state was to be founded.

IS. How far Christians ought to he from boasting, if they have done anything
for the love of the eternal country, when the Eomans did such great
things for human glory and a terrestrial city.

What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant,
if for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put
to death his son, — a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels
no one to make ? But certainly it is more difficult to put to
death one's sons, than to do what is required to be done for
the heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those

^ Jactantia.
VOL. I. O

210 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

things Avliich were looked upon as things to be amassed and
laid up for one's children, or to let them go, if there arise any
temptation which compels us to do so, for the sake of faith and
righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or
our sons happy ; for they must either be lost by us in our life-
time, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not,
or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes
us happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus,
even the poet who celebrates his praises testifies that it was
the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for
he says,

** And call his own rebellious seed
For menaced liberty to bleed.
Unhappy father ! howsoe'cr
The deed be judged by after days.",'

But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness,
saying,

" His country's love shall all o'crbear."

There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire
of human praise, which compelled the Bomans to admirable
deeds. If, therefore, for the liberty of dying men, and for
the desire of human praise which is sought after by mortals,
sons could be put to death by a father, what great thing is it,
if, for the true liberty which has made us free from the do-
minion of sin, and death, and the devil, — not through the desire
of human praise, but through the earnest desire of freeing men,
not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince of
the demons, — we should, I do not say put to death our sons,
but reckon among our sons Christ's poor ones ? If, also,
another Boman chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew liis son, not
because he fought against his country, but because, being
challenged by an enemy, he through youthful impetuosity
fought, thougli for liis country, yet contrary to orders which
he his father had given as general ; and tliis he did, notwith-
standing that his son was victorious, lest there should be more
evil in the example of authority despised, than good in the
glory of slaying an enemy ; — if, I say, Torquatus acted thus,
wliorofore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of
a celestial country, despise all cartldy good things, which aro

' .Kndd, vi. 820.

BOOK v.] r.OMAN EXAMPLES. 211

loved far less than sons ? If Furius Camillus, who was con-
demned by those who envied him, notwithstanding that he
had thrown off from the necks of his countrymen the yoke of
their most bitter enemies, the Veientes, again delivered his
ungrateful country from the Gauls, because he had no other
in wliich he could have better opportunities for living a life
of glory ; — if Camillus did thus, why should he be extolled as
having done some great thing, who, having, it may be, suffered
in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous
and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical
enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has
rather defended her, as far as he was able, from the most per-
nicious perversity of heretics, since there is not another church,
I say not in which one can live a life of glory, but in which
eternal life can be obtained ? If Mucins, in order that peace
might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the
Eomans with a most grievous war, when he did not succeed
in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for him,
reached forth his ric^ht hand and laid it on a red-hot altar,
saying that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for
his destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at
the thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay
recalled all his warlike purposes, and made peace ; — if, I say.
Mucins did this, who shall speak of his meritorious claims to
the kingdom of heaven, if for it he may have given to the flames
not one hand, but even his whole body, and that not by his own
spontaneous act, but because he was persecuted by another ?
If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all armed
into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods,
w^hich had commanded that the Piomans should throw into
that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could
only understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and
arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be
cast headlong into that destruction ;— if he did this, shaU we
say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal city
who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating
himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this
death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more espe-
cially when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

his country, a more certain oracle, " Fear not them who kill
the body, but cannot kill the soul ?"^ If the Decii dedicated
themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of
words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood
the wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering
the Toman army ; — if they did this, let not the holy martyrs
carry themselves proudly, as though they had done some meri-
torious thing for a share in that country where are eternal life
and felicity, if even to the shedding of their blood, loving not
only the brethren for whom it was shed, but, according as had
been commanded them, even their enemies by whom it was
being shed, they have vied with one another in faith of love
and love of faith. If ^larcus Pulvillus, when engaged in
dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received
with such indifference the false intelligence which was brought
to him of the death of his son, with the intention of so agitat-
ing him that he should go away, and thus the glory of dedicat-
ing the temple should fall to his colleague ; — if he received
that intelligence with such indifference that he even ordered
that his son should be cast out unburied, the love of glory
having overcome in his heart the grief of bereavement, how
shall any one affirm that he has done a great thing for the
preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly
city are delivered from divers errors, and gathered together
from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when
anxious about the burial of his father, " Follow me, and let
the dead bury their dead ?"^ Ivegulus, in order not to break
his oath, even with his most cruel enemies, returned to them
from Rome itself, because (as he is said to have replied to the
Komans when they wished to retain him) he could not have
the dignity of an honourable citizen at Iiome after havuig been
a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put him to
death with the utmost tortures, because he had spoken against
them in the senate. If llegulus acted thus, what tortures arc
not to be despised f>r tlie sake of good faith toward that
country to whose beatitude faitli itself leads ? Or what will
a man have rendered to the I^rd for all lie has bestowed upon
Lim, if, for the faithfulness he owes to Him, he shall have

» Miitt. X. 28. « Matt. viii. 22.

BOOK v.] VIRTUES OF THE ROMANS. 213

suffered such things as Eegulus suffered at the hands of his
most ruthless enemies for the good faith which he owed to
them ? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of his
voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during
the pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered
on the way which leads to the country where the true riches
are, even God Himself; — how, I say, shall he vaunt himself
for this, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who
died when he was holding the office of consul, was so poor
that his funeral expenses were paid with money collected by
the people ? — or when he hears that Quintius Cincinnatus,
who, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating them
with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator, — an office more honourable even than that of consul,
— and that, after having won great glory by conquering the
enemy, he preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty ?
Or how shall he boast of having done a great thing, who has
not been prevailed upon by the offer of any reward of this
world to renounce his connection with that heavenly and
eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could not be pre-
vailed on to forsake the Eoman city by the great gifts offered
to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, Avho promised him the
fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his
poverty as a private individual ? For if, when their republic,
— that is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country,
the common interest, — was most prosperous and wealthy, they
themselves were so poor in their own houses, that one of them,
who had already been twice a consul, w^as expelled from that
senate of poor men by the censor, because he was discovered
to possess ten pounds weight of silver-plate, — since, I say,
those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury was
enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians, who make
common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose,
even that (according to what is written in the Acts of the
Apostles) they may distribute to each one according to his
need, and that no one may say that anything is his own, but
that all things may be their common possession,^ — ought they
not to understand that they should not vaunt themselves, be-

^ Acts ii. 45.

214 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

cause they do tliat to obtain tlie society of angels, when tliose
men did well-nigh the same tiling to preserve the glory of the
Itomans ?

IIow could these, and whatever like things are found in the
Tioman history, have become so widely knowTi, and have been
proclaimed by so great a fame, had not the Eoman empire,
extending far and wide, been raised to its greatness by mag-
nificent successes ? Wherefore, tlirough that em^pire, so ex-
tensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious and glorious
also through the virtues of such great men, the reward which
they sought was rendered to their earnest asj)irations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition,
in order that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that
we have not held fast those virtues for the sake of the most
glorious city of God, which are, in whatever way, resembled
by those virtues which they held fast for the sake of the glory
of a terrestrial city, and that, too, if we shall feel conscious
that we have held them fast, we may not be lifted up with
l)ride, because, as the apostle says, " The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory
which shall be revealed in us."^ But so far as recrards human
and temporal glory, the lives of these ancient liomans were
reckoned sufficiently worthy. Therefore, also, we see, in the
light of that truth which, veiled in the Old Testament, is re-
vealed in the New, namely, that it is not in view of terrestrial
and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants promis-
cuously to good and evil, that God is to be worshipped, but in
view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society of the
heavenly city itself; — in the light of this truth we see that
the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory
of the Itomans ; for we see that these Piomans, who rested on
earthly glory, and sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they
were, conquered those who, in their great depravity, slew and
rejected the giver of true glory, and of the eternal city.

10. Concerning the lUffcrmce belwren true ylortj and the desire of domination.

There is assuredly a difference between the desire of human
glory and the desire of domination ; for, though he who has

* Kom. viii. 18.

BOOK v.] LOVE OF PRAISE. 215

an overweening delight in human glory will be also very prone
to aspire earnestly after domination, nevertheless they who
desire the true glory even of human praise strive not to dis-
please those who judge well of them. For there are many
good moral qualities, of which many are competent judges,
although they are not possessed by many ; and by those good
moral qualities those men press on to glory, honour, and domi-
nation, of whom Sallust says, " But they press on by the true
way."

But wdiosoever, without possessing that desire of glory
which makes one fear to displease those who judge his con-
duct, desires domination and power, very often seeks to obtain
what he loves by most open crimes. Therefore he w^ho desires
glory presses on to obtain it either by the true way, or cer-
tainly by deceit and artifice, wishing to appear good when
he is not. Therefore to him who possesses virtues it is a
great virtue to despise glory ; for contempt of it is seen by
God, but is not manifest to human judgment. For whatever
any one does before the eyes of men in order to show himself
to be a despiser of glory, if they suspect that he is doing it
in order to get greater praise, — that is, greater glory, — he has
no means of demonstrating to the perceptions of those who
suspect him that the case is really otherwise than they sus-
pect it to be. But he who despises the judgment of praisers,
despises also the rashness of suspectors. Their salvation, in-
deed, he does not despise, if he is truly good ; for so great is
the righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from
the Spirit of God, that he loves his very enemies, and so loves
them that he desires that his haters and detractors may be
turned to righteousness, and become his associates, and that not
in an earthly but in a heavenly country. But with respect
to his praisers, though he sets little value on their praise, he
does not set little value on their love ; neither does he elude
their praise, lest he should forfeit their love. And, therefore,
he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him from
whom every one receives whatever in him is truly praise-
worthy. But he who is a despiser of glory, but is greedy of
domination, exceeds the beasts in the vices of cruelty and
luxuriousness. Such, indeed, were certain of the Eomans,

21 G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

who, wanting the love of esteem, wanted not the thirst for
domination ; and that there were many such, history testifies.
But it was Nero Caesar who was the first to reach the summit,
and, as it were, the citadel, of this vice ; for so great was his
luxuriousness, that one would have thought there was nothing
manly to be dreaded in him, and such his cruelty, that, had
not the contrary been known, no one would have thouglit
there was anything eileminate in his character. Xevertheloss
power and domination are not given even to such men save
by the providence of the most high God, when He judges that
the state of human affairs is worthy of such lords. The divine
utterance is clear on this matter ; for the Wisdom of God thus
speaks : " By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land." ^
But, that it may not be thought that by " tyrants" is meant,
not wicked and impious kings, but brave men, in accordance
with the ancient use of the word, as when Virgil says,

" For know that treaty may not stand
"Where king greets king and joins not hand,"-

in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that
He " maketh the man who is an hypocrite to reign on account
of the perversity of the people."^ Wherefore, though I have,
according to my ability, shown for what reason God, who
alone is true and just, helped forward the Bomans, who were
good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to
the acquirement of the glory of so great an empire, there may
be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause, known better to God
than to us, depending on the diversity of the merits of the
human race. Among all who are truly pious, it is at all
events agreed that no one without true piety — that is, true
worship of the tme God — can have true virtue ; and that it
is not true virtue which is the slave of human praise. Though,
nevertheless, they who are not citizens of the eternal city,
which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures, are
more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that
virtue than if they had not even that. But there could be
nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that, by the
mercy of God, they who are endowed with true piety of life,
if they liave the skill for ruling people, should also have the

^ Tiov. viii. 15. - ^Eneid, vii. 2CG. " Job xxxiv. GO.

BOOK v.] PLEASURE DEPICTED AS A QUEEN. 217

power. But such men, however great vhlues they may possess
in this life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has
bestowed it on them — willing, believing, seeking. And, at
the same time, they understand how far they are short of that
perfection of righteousness which exists in the society of those
holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves. But
however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which
without true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at
all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue
of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of
the true God.

20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily pleasure.

Philosophers, — who place the end of human good in virtue
itself, in order to put to shame certain other philosophers, who
indeed approve of the virtues, but measure them all with
reference to the end of bodily pleasure, and think that this
pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues on
account of pleasure, — are wont to paint a kind of word-picture,
in which Pleasure sits like a luxurious queen on a royal seat,
and all the virtues are subjected to her as slaves, watching her
nod, that they may do whatever she shall command. She
commands Prudence to be ever on the watch to discover
how Pleasure may rule, and be safe. Justice she orders to
grant what benefits she can, in order to secure those friend-
ships wliich are necessary for bodily pleasure ; to do wrong
to no one, lest, on account of the breaking of the laws. Pleasure
be not able to live in security. Fortitude she orders to keep
her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in her mind, if any
affliction befall her body which does not occasion death, in
order that by remembrance of former delights she may miti-
gate the poignancy of present pain. Temperance she com-
mands to take only a certain quantity even of the most
favourite food, lest, through immoderate use, anything prove
hurtful by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure,
which the Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health
of the body, be grievously offended. Thus the virtues, with
the whole dignity of their glory, will be the slaves of Pleasure,
as of some imperious and disreputable woman.

There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful

218 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

and monstrous than this picture, and which the eyes of good
men can less endure. And they say the truth. But I do
not think that the picture would be sufficiently becoming,
even if it were made so that the virtues should be repre-
sented as the slaves of human glory ; for, though that glory
be not a luxurious woman, it is nevertheless puffed up, and
lias much vanity in it. Wlierefore it is unworthy of the
solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as
serving this glory, so that Prudence shall provide nothing,
Justice distribute nothing. Temperance moderate nothing,
except to the end that men may be pleased and vainglory
served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves from the
charge of such baseness, whilst they, by way of being despisers
of glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to them-
selves wise, and please themselves. For their virtue, — if, in-
deed, it is virtue at all, — is only in another way subjected to
human praise ; for he who seeks to please himself seeks still
to please man. But he who, with true piety towards God,
whom he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more
on those things in which he displeases himself, than on those
things, if there are any such, which please himself, or rather,
not himself, but the truth, does not attribute that by which
he can now please the truth to anything but to the mercy of
Him whom he has feared to displease, giving thanks for what
in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of
that which is yet unhealed.

21. That the Hainan dominion was granted h]i IHm from xchom is all poicer^
and by xcliosc providence all things are ruled.

These things being so, we do not attribute the power of
giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God,
who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious
alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and
the impious, as it may please Iliin, wliose good pleasure is
always just. For though wo have said something about the
principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has
seemed good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much
for us, and far surpasses our strengtli, to discuss the hidden
things of men's hearts, and by a clear examination to deter-
mine the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is

BOOK v.] COD THE GIVER OF EMPIRE. 219

the one true God, who never leaves the human race without
just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Eomans when
He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to the
Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books
testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and tlie
other evil, — to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of
whom I have already spoken as much as seemed necessary,
who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped none save
the true God. The same, therefore, who gave to the Persians
harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia,
who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did
not worship the many gods which the Ptomans supposed to
preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of
them over each several thing, — He, I say, gave the Persians
dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to
whom the Piomans believed themselves indebted for the
empire. And the same is true in respect of men as well
as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to
Caius Caesar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to
Nero ; He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors,
the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel
Domitian ; and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over
them all, He who gave it to the Christian Constantine gave
it also to the apostate Julian, v/hose gifted mind was deceived
by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by the
love of power. And it was because he was addicted through
curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he burned
the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for
his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly
audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just con-
sequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned
in an enemy's country, and in such a predicament that it
never could have escaped, save by altering the boundaries of
the Eoman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Ter-
minus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god
Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to
Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by
the one God according as He pleases ; and if His motives are
hid, are they therefore unjust ?

220 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK V.

22. Tlce durations and issues of war depend on tJie will of God.

Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him
as He may see meet, according to His righteous will, and
pleasure, and mercy, to afllict or to console the human race,
so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter
duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war
were terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war of
the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Poman generals
and the consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted
and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year, having
itself been, during its continuance, the end of much. The
Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, not distant but Italian
nations, after a long and most loyal servitude under the
Eoman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty,
though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman
power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian
war the Pomans were very often defeated, and two consuls
perished, besides other noble senators ; nevertheless this cala-
mity was not protracted over a long space of time, for the
iifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting
for the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest
disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and well-
nigh consumed the strength of the Pomans ; for in two battles
about seventy thousand Pomans felL^ The first Punic war
was terminated after having been waged for three-and-twenty
years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And
that no one may think that in the early and much belauded
times of the Pomans they wore far braver and more able
to bring wars to a speedy termination, the Samnite war was
protracted for nearly fifty years ; and in this war the Pomans
were so beaten that they were even put under the yt)ke. But
because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but
seemed rather to have loved justice for the sake of glory,
they broke the peace and the treaty which had been concluded.
These things I mention, because many, ignorant of past things,
and some also dissimulating what tliey know, if in Christian
times they see any war protracted a little longer than they
expected, straightway make a iicrce and insolent attack on

^ Of llie Thrasymcne Luke and Cunnoe.

BOOK v.] god's MERCY TO THE ROMANS. 221

our religion, exclaiming that, but for it, the deities would have
been supplicated still, according to ancient rites ; and then, by
that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help of Mars and
Bellona, speedily brought to an end such great wars, this war
also would be speedily terminated. Let them, therefore, who
have read history recollect what long-continued wars, having
various issues and entailing woful slaughter, were waged by
the ancient Eomans, in accordance with the general truth
that the earth, like the tempestuous deep, is subject to agita-
tions from tempests — tempests of such evils, in various
degrees, — and let them sometimes confess what they do not
like to own, and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy
themselves and deceive the ignorant.

23. Concerning the war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a worshipper
oj demons, was conquered in one day, with all his mighty forces.

Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what
God has very recently, and within our own memory, wonder-
fully and mercifully done, but as far as in them lies they
attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal oblivion. But
should we be silent about these things, we should be in like
manner ungrateful. When Eadagaisus, king of the Goths,
having taken up his position very near to the city, with a vast
and savage army, was already close upon the Eomans, he was
in one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, whilst
not even one Eoman was wounded, much less slain, far more
than a hundred thousand of his army were prostrated, and he
himself and his sons, having been captured, were forthwith
put to death, suffering the punishment they deserved. For
had so impious a man, with so great and so impious a host,
entered the city, whom would he have spared ? what tombs
of the martyrs would he have respected ? in his treatment
of what person would he have manifested the fear of God ?
whose blood would he have, refrained from shedding ? whose
chastity would he have wished to preserve inviolate ? But
how loud would they not have been in the praises of their
gods ! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying that
Eadagaisus had conquered, that he had been able to acliieve
such great things, because he propitiated and won over the
gods by daily sacrifices, — a thing which the Christian religion

222 THE CITY OF COD. [book v.

did not allow the Romans to do ! For when he was approach-
ing to those places where he was overwhelmed at the nod of
the Supreme i\Iajesty, as his fame was every^vhere increasing,
it was being told us at Carthage that the pagans w^ere believ-
ing, publishing, and boasting, that he, on account of the help
and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of the
sacrilices which he was said to be daily offering to them,
would certainly not be conquered by those who were not
performing such sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not
even permit tliat they should be offered by any one. And
now these wretched men do not give thanks to God for His
great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the corrup-
tion of men, wliich was worthy of far heavier chastisement
than the corruption of the barbarians, tempered His indigna-
tion with such mildness as, in the first instance, to cause tliat
the king of the Goths should be conquered in a wonderful
manner, lest glory should accrue to demons, whom he was
known to be supplicating, and thus the minds of the weak
should be overthrown ; and then, afterwards, to cause that,
when Rome was to be taken, it should be taken by those
barbarians who, contrary to any custom of all former wars,
protected, through reverence for the Christian religion, those
who fled for refuge to the sacred places, and who so opposed
the demons themselves, and the rites of impious sacrifices,
tliat they seemed to be carrying on a far more terrible war
with them than with men. Thus did the true Lord and Gover-
nor of things both scourge the Romans mercifully, and, by the
marvellous defeat of the worshippers of demons, sliow that
those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of pre-
sent things ; so that, by those who do not obstinately hold out,
but prudently consider tlie matter, true religion may not be
deserted on account of the urgencies of the present time, but
may be more clung to in most confident expectation of eternal
life.

Ill, What was thr Im /'j/in<s.'< of (fir Clii'iitian emperors, and hove far it was
true happiness.

Forncither do \\c .^;iy that certain Christian emperors were
therefore happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a
peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire,

BOOK v.] DESCRIPTION OF A HAPPY EMPEROR. 223

or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were able both to
guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens
risine against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this
sorrowful life even certain worshippers of demons have merited
to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which
these belong ; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God,
who would not have those who believe in Him desire such
things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy
if they rule justly ; if they are not lifted up amid the praises
of those who pay them sublime honours, and the obsequious-
ness of those who salute them with an excessive humility,
but remember that they are men ; if they make their power
the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest pos-
sible extension of His worship ; if they fear, love, worship
God ; if more than their own they love that kingdom in wliicli
they are not afraid to have partners ; if they are slow to
punish, ready to pardon ; if they apply that punisliment as
necessary to government and defence of the republic, and not
in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon,
not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that
the transgressor may amend his ways ; if they compensate
with the lenity of mercy and the liberality of benevolence
for whatever severity they may be compelled to decree ; if
their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained ; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather
than any nation whatever ; and if they do all these things,
not through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of
eternal felicity, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who
is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contri-
tion, and prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy
in the present time by hope, and are destined to be so in the
enjoyment of the reality itself, when that which we wait for
shall have arrived.

25. Concerning the 'prosperity ivhicJi God granted to the Christian emperor
Constantine.

For the good God, lest men, who believe that He is to be
worshipped with a view to eternal life, should think that no
one could attain to all this high estate, and to this terrestrial
dominion, unless he should be a worsliipper of the demons, —

224 THE CITY OF GOP. [book t.

supposing that these spirits have great power with respect to
such things, — for this reason lie gave to the Emperor Con-
stantino, wlio was not a worshipper of demons, Lut of the
true God Himself, such fuhiess of earthly gifts as no one
would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the
honour of founding a city,^ a companion to the lioman empire,
the daughter, as it were, of liome itself, but without any
temple or image of the demons. He reigned for a long period
as sole emperor, and unaided held and defended the whole
Itoman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he was
most victorious ; in overthrowing tyrants he was most success-
ful. He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left
his sons to succeed liim in the empire.^ But again, lest any
emperor should become a Christian in order to merit the happi-
ness of Constantine, when every one should be a Christian
for the sake of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner
than Julian, and permitted that Gratian should be slain by
the sword of a t}Tant. But in his case there was far more
mitigation of the calamity than in the case of the great
Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had
left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though
pious minds require not such consolations, was avenged by
Theodosius, whom he had associated with himself in the
empire, though he had a little brother of his own, being more
desirous of a faithful alliance than of extensive power.

2(». On the faith and piety of Theodosius Aujustu.f.

And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during
the lifetime of Gratian that fidelity which was due to him,
but also, after his death, he, like a true Christian, took his
little brother Valentinian under his protection, as joint em-
peror, after he had been expelled by Alaxinms, the murderer
of liis father. He guarded liim with paternal affection, though
lie might without any difliculty have got rid of him, being
entirely destitute of all resources, had he been animated with
the desire of extensive empire, and not with the ambition of
being a benefactor. It was therefore a far greater pleasure to
him, when lie liad adopted the boy, and preserved to him his

* Constantinople. ' C'unstnniius, C'uiibtautini', and Coustans.

BODK v.] GREATNESS OF THEODOSIUS. 225

imperial dignity, to console liim by his very humanity and
kindness. Afterwards, when that success was rendering
Maximus terrible, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing
anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a
sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose
abode was in the desert of Egypt, — for he had learned that this
servant of God (whose fame was spreading abroad) was endowed
with the gift of prophecy, — and from him he received assurance
of victory. Immediately the slayer of the tyrant Maximus,
with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect, restored
the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which
he had been driven. Valentinianus being soon after slain by
secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident, Theo-
dosius, having again received a response from the prophet,
and placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant
Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that
emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer
than by the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle
reported to me that all the missiles they were throwing were
snatched from their hands by a vehement wind, which blew
from the direction of Theodosius' army upon the enemy ; nor
did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were
hurled against them, but also turned back upon their own
bodies the darts which they themselves were throwing. And
therefore the poet Claudian, although an alien from the name
of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, " 0 prince,
too much beloved by God, for thee ^olus pours armed tempests
from their caves ; for thee the air fights, and the winds with
one accord obey thy bugles."-^ But the victor, as he had
believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter, which
had been, as it were, consecrated by I know not what land
of rites against him, and set up in the Alps. And the
thunderbolts of these statues, which were made of gold, he
mirthfully and graciously presented to his couriers, who (as
the joy of the occasion permitted) were jocularly saying that
they would be most happy to be struck by such thunderbolts.
The sons of his own enemies, whose fathers had been slain
not so much by his orders as by the vehemence of war, having

^ Panegyr. de tertio Ilonorii considatu.
VOL. L P

226 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK V.

fled for refuge to a cliurcli, though tliey were not yet Christians,
he was anxious, taking advantage of the occasion, to bring
over to Christianity, and treated them with Christian love.
Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides allow-
ing them to retain it, bestowed on them additional honours.
He did not permit private animosities to affect the treat-
ment of any man after the war. He was not like Cinna,
and Marius, and Sylla, and other such men, who wished
not to finish civil wars even when they were finished, but
rather grieved that they had arisen at all, than wished that
when they were finished they should harm any one. Amid
all these events, from the very commencement of his reign, he
did not cease to help the troubled church against the impious
by most just and merciful laws, which the heretical Valens,
favouring the Arians, had vehemently aftlicted. Indeed, he
rejoiced more to be a member of this church than he did
to be a king upon the earth. The idols of the Gentiles he
every^vhere ordered to be overthrown, understanding well that
not even terrestrial gifts are placed in the power of demons,
but in that of the true God. And what could be more ad-
mirable than his religious humility, when, compelled by the
urgency of certain of his intimates, he avenged tlie giievous
crime of the Thessalonians, which at the prayer of the bishops
he had promised to pardon, and, being laid hold of by the
discipline of the church, did penance in such a way that the
sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated made the people who
were interceding for him weep more than the consciousness of
offence had made them fear it wlicn enraged*? These and
other similar good works, whicli it would be long to tell, he
carried with him from this world of time, where the gi'eatest
luiman nobility and loftiness are but vapour. Of these works
the reward is eternal happiness, of M'hich God is the giver,
though only to those who are sincerely pious. But all other
blessings and privileges of tliis life, as the world itself, light,
air, earth, water, fruits, and the soul of man himself, his body,
senses, mind, life, He lavishes on good and bad alike. And
among these blessings is also to be reckoned the possession of
an empire, whose extent He regulates according to tlie re-
quirements of His providential government at various times.
Whence, I see, we must now answer those who, being con-

BOOK v.] CONCLUSION. 227

futed and convicted by the most manifest proofs, by which it
is shown that for obtaining these terrestrial things, which are
all the foolish desire to have, that multitude of false gods is
of no use, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshipped
with a view to the interest, not of the present life, but of that
which is to come after death. For as to those who, for the
sake of the friendship of this world, are willing to worship
vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to their puerile
understandings, I think they have been sufficiently answered
in these five books ; of which books, when I had published
the first three, and they had begun to come into the hands of
many, I heard that certain persons were preparing against
them an answer of some kind or other in writing. Then it
was told me that they had already written their answer, but
were waiting a time when they could publish it without
danger. Such persons I would advise not to desire what
cannot be of any advantage to them ; for it is very easy for
a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when
he has only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more
loquacious than vanity ? And though it be able, if it like, to
shout more loudly than the truth, it is not, for all that, more
powerful than the truth. But let men consider diligently all
the things that we have said, and if, perchance, judging with-
out party spirit, they shall clearly perceive that they are such
things as may rather be shaken than torn up by their most
impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and mimic levity,
let them restrain their absurdities, and let them choose rather
to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the foolish.
For if they are waiting an opportunity, not for liberty to speak
the truth, but for licence to revile, may not that befall them
which Tully says concerning some one, " Oh, wretched man !
who was at liberty to sin?"-^ Wherefore, whoever he be
who deems himself happy because of licence to revile, he
would be far happier if that were not allowed him at all ; for
he might all the while, laying aside empty boast, be contra-
dicting those to whose views he is opposed by way of free
consultation with them, and be listening, as it becomes him,
honourably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by
those whom he consults by friendly disputation.
^ Tiisc. Quaest. v. 19.

228 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK YZ.

BOOK SIXTH.
ARGUMENT.

HITHERTO THE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN CONDUCTED AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE
THAT THE GODS ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF TEMPORAL AD-
VANTAGES, NOW IT IS DIRECTED AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT THEY
ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF ETERNAL LIFE. AUGUSTINE
DEVOTES THE FIVE FOLLOWING BOOKS TO THE CONFUTATION OF THIS LATTER
BELIEF, AND FIRST OF ALL SHOWS HOW MEAN AN OPINION OF THE GODS
WAS HELD BY VARRO HIMSELF, THE MOST ESTEEMED WRITER ON HEATUKN
THEOLOGY. OF THIS THEOLOGY AUGUSTINE ADOPTS VARRO's DIVISION INTO
THREE KJNDS, MYTHICAL, NATURAL, AND CIVIL ; AND AT ONCE DEMON-
STRATES THAT NEITHER THE MYTHICAL NOR THE CIVIL C.VN CONTRIBUTE
ANYTHING TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE FUTURE LIFE.

PREFACE.

IN the five former books, I think I have sufficiently dis-
puted against those who believe that the many false gods,
which the Christian truth shows to be useless images, or un-
clean spirits and pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not
the Creator, are to be worshipped for the advantage of this
mortal life, and of terrestrial affairs, with that rite and service
which the Greeks call Xarpela, and which is due to the one
true God. And who does not know that, in the face of
excessive stupidity and obstinacy, neither these five nor any
other number of books whatsoever could be enough, when it is
esteemed the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of strength
on the side of truth, — certainly to his destruction over whom
so heinous a vice tyrannizes ? For, notwithstanding all the
assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a cure, the
disease remains unconquered, not through any fault of his, but
because of the incurableness of the sick man. But those who
thoroughly weigh the things which they read, having under-
stood and considered them, without any, or with no gi'cat and
excessive degree of that obstinacy which belongs to a long-
cherished error, will more readily judge that, in the five
books alre^idy finished, we have done more than the neces-

BOOK VI.] DO THE GODS GIVE ETERNAL LIFE ? 229

sity of the question demanded, than that we have given it less
discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted
but that all the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring
upon the Christian religion on account of the disasters of this
life, and the destruction and change which befall terrestrial
things, whilst the learned do not merely dissimulate, but en-
courage that hatred, contrary to their own consciences, being
possessed by a mad impiety; — they cannot have doubted, I say,
but that this hatred is devoid of right reflection and reason,
and full of most light temerity, and most pernicious animosity.

1. Of those v:lio maintain that they worship the gods not for the sake of
temporal, hut eternal advantages.

Now, as, in the next place (as the promised order demands),
those are to be refuted and taught who contend that the gods
of the nations, which the Christian truth destroys, are to be
worshipped not on account of this life, but on account of that
which is to be after death, I shall do well to commence my
disputation with the truthful oracle of the holy psalm, " Blessed
is the man whose hope is the Lord God, and who respecteth
not vanities and lying follies." ^ ^Nevertheless, in all vanities
and lying follies the philosophers are to be listened to with
far more toleration, who have repudiated those opinions and
errors of the people; for the people set up images to the
deitties, and either feigned concerning those whom they call
immortal gods many false and unworthy things, or believed
them, already feigned, and, when believed, mixed them up
with their worship and sacred rites.

With those men who, though not by free avowal of their
convictions, do still testify that they disapprove of those tilings
by their muttering disapprobation during disputations on the
subject, it may not be very far amiss to discuss the following
question: Whether, for the sake of the life which is to be
after death, we ought to worship, not the one God, who made
all creatures spiritual and corporeal, but those many gods who,
as some of these philosophers hold, were made by that one God,
and placed by Him in their respective sublime spheres, and are
therefore considered more excellent and more noble than all the
others ?^ But who will assert that it must be affirmed and

1 Ps. xl. 4. 2 Plato in the Timoius.

230 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VT.

contended that those gods, certain of whom I have mentioned
in the fourth book/ to whom are distributed, each to each, the
charges of minute things, do bestow eternal life ? But will those
most skilled and most acute men, who glory in having written
for the great benefit of men, to teach on what account each god
is to be worshipped, and what is to be sought from each, lest
\vith most disgraceful absurdity, such as a mimic is wont for
the sake of merriment to exhibit, water should be sought from
Liber, wine from the Lymphs, — will those men indeed affirm
to any man supplicating the immortal gods, that when he
shall have asked wine from the Lymphs, and they shall have
answered him, " We have water, seek wine from Liber," he
may rightly say, " If ye have not wine, at least give me
eternal life ?" What more monstrous than this absurdity ?
Will not these Lymphs, — for they are wont to be very easily
made laugh,^ — laughing loudly (if they do not attempt to
deceive like demons), answer the suppliant, " 0 man, dost
thou think that we have life (vitam) in our power, who thou
hearest have not even the vine (vitcm) V It is therefore most
impudent folly to seek and hope for eternal life from such
gods as are asserted so to preside over the separate minute
concernments of this most sorrowful and short life, and what-
ever is useful for supporting and propping it, as that if any-
thing which is under the care and power of one be sought
from another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears
very like to mimic drollery, — which, when it is done by
mimics knowing what they are doing, is deservedly laughed
at in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons, who
do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world.
Wlierefore, as concerns those gods which the states have
established, it has been cleverly invented and handed do^\^l to
memory by learned men, what god or goddess is to be sup-
plicated in relation to every particular thing, — what, for
instance, is to be sought from Liber, what from the Lymphs,
what from Vulcan, and so of all the rest, some of wliom I
have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought
right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from
Ceres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the

» Ch. xi. nn.l xxi. • See Virgil, Ec. iii. 9.

BOOK VI.] THE LIMITED POWER OF THE GODS. 231

Lymphs, how much greater absurdity ought it to be thought,
if supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life ?

Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring what gods or god-
desses are to be believed to be able to confer earthly king-
doms upon men, all things having been discussed, it was shown
to be very far from the truth to think that even terrestrial
kingdoms are estabhshed by any of those many false deities,
is it not most insane impiety to believe that eternal life,
which is, without any doubt or comparison, to be preferred
to all terrestrial kingdoms, can be given to any one by any of
these gods ? For the reason why such gods seemed to us not
to be able to give even an earthly kingdom, was not because
they are very great and exalted, whilst that is something small
and abject, which they, in their so great sublimity, would
not condescend to care for, but because, however deservedly
any one may, in consideration of human frailty, despise the
falling pinnacles of an earthly Idngdom, these gods have pre-
sented such an appearance as to seem most unworthy to have
the granting and preserving of even those entrusted to them ;
and consequently, if (as we have taught in the two last books
of our work, where this matter is treated of) no god out of all
that crowd, either belonging to, as it were, the plebeian or to
the noble gods, is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how
much less is he able to make immortals of mortals ?

And more than tliis, if, according to the opinion of those
with whom we are now arguing, the gods are to be worshipped,
not on account of the present life, but of that which is to be
after death, then, certainly, they are not to be worshipped on
account of those particular things which are distributed and
portioned out (not by any law of rational truth, but by mere
vain conjecture) to the power of such gods, as they believe they
ought to be worshipped, who contend that their worsliip is neces-
sary for all the desirable things of this mortal life, against whom
I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I was able, in the five pre-
ceding books. These things being so, if the age itself of those
who worshipped the goddess Juventas should be characterized
by remarkable vigour, whilst her despisers should either die
within the years of youth, or should, during that period, grow
cold as with the torpor of old age ; if bearded Fortuna should

232 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

cover the cheeks of her worshippers more handsomely and more
gracefully than all others, whilst we should see those by whom
she was despised either altogether beardless or ill-bearded ;
even then we should most rightly say, that thus far these
several gods had power, limited in some way by their functions,
and that, consequently, neither ought eternal life to be sought
from Juventas, who could not give a beard, nor ought any
good thing after this life to be expected from Fortuna Barbata,
who has no power even in this life to give the age itself at
which the beard grows. But now, when their worship is
necessary not even on account of those very things which
they think are subjected to their power, — for many worshippers
of the goddess Juventas have not been at all vigorous at that
age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in youthful
strength ; and also many suppliants of Fortuna Barbata have
either not been able to attain to any beard at all, not even an
ugly one, although they who adore her in order to obtain a
beard are ridiculed by her bearded despisers, — is the human
heart really so foolish as to believe that that worship of the
gods, which it acknowledges to be vain and ridiculous with
respect to those very temporal and swiftly passing gifts, over
each of which one of these gods is said to preside, is fruitful
in results with respect to eternal life ? And that they are able
to give eternal life has not been affirmed even by those who,
that they might be worshipped by the silly populace, dis-
tributed in minute division among them these temporal
occupations, that none of them might sit idle ; for they had
supposed the existence of an exceedingly great number.

2. Whaf we are to believe that Varro thought concerning the gods of the nations,
whose various kinds and sacred rites he has sfioicn to be such that he
would Jiave acted more reverently towards them had lie been altogether
silent concerning them.

"Who has investigated those things more carefully than
^larcus Varro ? Who lias discovered tliem more learnedly ?
Who has considered them more attentively ? Wlio has dis-
tinguished them more acutely ? Who has ^\Titten about them
more diligently and more fully ? — wlio, though he is less
pleasing in his eloquence, is nevertheless so full of instruc-
tion and wisdom, that in all tlic erudition which we call

BOOK vl] of varro. 233

secular, but they liberal, he will teach the student of things
as much as Cicero delights the student of words. And even
Tally himself renders him such testimony, as to say in his
Academic books that he had held that disputation which is
there carried on with Marcus Varro, " a man," he adds, " un-
questionably the acutest of all men, and, without any doubt,
the most learned."^ He does not say the most eloquent or
the most fluent, for in reality he was very deficient in this
faculty, but he says, "of all men the most acute." And
in those books, — that is, the Academic, — where he con-
tends that all things are to be doubted, he adds of him,
"without any doubt the most learned." In truth, he was so
certain concerning this thing, that he laid aside that doubt
which he is wont to have recourse to in all things, as if,
when about to dispute in favour of the doubt of the Aca-
demics, he had, with respect to this one thing, forgotten
that he was an Academic. But in the first book, when he
extols the literary works of the same Varro, he says, "Us
straying and wandering in our own city like strangers, thy
books, as it were, brought home, that at length we might
come to know of who we were and where we were. Thou
hast opened up to us the age of the country, the distribution
of seasons, the laws of sacred things, and of the priests ; thou
hast opened up to us domestic and public discipline ; thou
hast pointed out to us the proper places for religious cere-
monies, and hast informed us concerning sacred places. Thou
hast shown us the names, kinds, offices, causes of all divine
and human things."^

This man, then, of so distinguished and excellent acquire-
ments, and, as Terentian briefly says of him in a most elegant
verse,

" Varro, a man imiversally informed,"'

who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write,
wrote so much that we can scarcely believe any one could have
read it all, — this man, I say, so great in talent, so great in

1 Of the four books De Acad.y dedicated to Varro, only a part of the first is
extant.

^ Cicero, De Qucest. Acad. i. 3,

2 In his book De Metris, cliapter on phalacian verses.

234 THE CITY OF GOD. [cOOK VI.

learning, had he been an opposer and destroyer of the so-called
divine things of which he wrote, and had he said that they
pertained to superstition rather than to religion, might per-
haps, even in that case, not have written so many tilings
which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But when he
so worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their
worship, as to say, in that same literary work of his, that
he was afraid lest they should perish, not by an assault
by enemies, but by the negligence of the citizens, and that
from this ignominy they are being delivered by him, and are
being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by
means of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that
through which Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred
things of Vesta from the flames, and iEneas to have rescued
the Penates from the burning of Troy ; and when he, never-
theless, gives forth such things to be read by succeeding ages
as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit to
be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion ; what
ought we to think but that a most acute and learned man, —
not, however, made free by the Holy Spirit, — was overpowered
by the custom and laws of his state, and, not being able to be
silent about those things by which he was influenced, spoke
of them under pretence of commending religion ?

3. Varro's distHbtUion of his book which he composed concerning the antiqiiilies
of human and divine things.

lie wrote forty-one books of antiquities. These he divided
into human and divine things. Twenty-five he devoted to
human things, sixteen to divine things ; following this plan in
that division, — namely, to give six books to each of the four
divisions of human things. For he directs his attention to
these considerations : who perform, where they perform, when
they perform, what they perform. Therefore in the first six
books he wrote concerning men ; in the second six, concerning
places ; in the third six, concerning times ; in the fourth and
last six, concerning things. Four times six, however, make
only twenty-four. lUit he placed at the head of them one
separate work, which spoke of all these things conjointly.

In divine things, the same order he preserved tliroughout,
as far as concerns those things which are performed to the

BOOK VI.] ACCOUNT OF VARRO'S BOOK. 235

gods. For sacred things are performed by men in places and
times. These four things I have mentioned he embraced in
twelve books, allotting three to each. For he wrote the first
three concerning men, the following three concerning places,
the third three concerning times, and the fourth three concern-
ing sacred rites, — showing who should perform, where they
should perform, when they should perform, what they should
perform, with most subtle distinction. But because it was
necessary to say — and that especially was expected — to whom
they should perform sacred rites, he wrote concerning the gods
themselves the last three books ; and these five times three
made fifteen. But they are in all, as we have said, sixteen.
For he put also at the beginning of these one distinct book,
speaking by way of introduction of all which follows ; which
being finished, he proceeded to subdivide the first three in
that fivefold distribution which pertain to men, making the
first concerning high priests, the second concerning augurs,
the third concerning the fifteen men presiding over the sacred
ceremonies.^ The second three he made concerning places,
speaking in one of them concerning their chapels, in the
second concerning their temples, and in the third concerning
religious places. The next three which follow these, and per-
tain to times, — that is, to festival days, — he distributed so as
to make one concerning holidays, the other concerning the
circus games, and the third concerning scenic plays. Of the
fourth three, pertaining to sacred things, he devoted one to
consecrations, another to private, the last to public, sacred
rites. In the three which remain, the Gfods themselves follow
this pompous train, as it were, for whom all this culture has
been expended. In the first book are the certain gods, in the
second the uncertain, in the third, and last of all, the chief
and select gods.

4, That from the disputation of Varro, it follows that the worshippers of the
gods regard human things as more ancient than divine things.

In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle dis-

1 Tarquin the Proud, having bought the books of the sibyl, appointed two
men to preserve and interpret them (Dionys. Halic. Antiq. iv. 62). These were
afterwards increased to ten, while the plebeians were contending lor larger privi-
leges ; and subsequently five more were added.

236 THE CITY OF GOD. [cOOK VT.

tributions and distinctions, it will most easily appear evident
from the things we have said already, and from what is to be
said hereafter, to any man who is not, in the obstinacy of his
heart, an enemy to himself, that it is vain to seek and to hope
for, and even most impudent to wish for eternal life. For
these institutions are either the work of men or of demons, —
not of those whom they call good demons, but, to speak more
plainly, of unclean, and, without controversy, malign spirits,
who with wonderful slyness and secretness suggest to the
tlioughts of the impious, and sometimes openly present to
their understandings, noxious opinions, by which the human
mind grows more and more foolish, and becomes unable to
adapt itself to and abide in the immutable and eternal truth,
and seek to confirm these opinions by every kind of fallacious
attestation in their power. This very same Varro testifies
that he -wTote first concerning human things, but afterwards
concerning divine things, because the states existed first, and
afterward these things were instituted by them. But the
true religion was not instituted by any earthly state, but
plainly it established the celestial city. It, however, is
inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of eternal life
to His true worshippers.

The following is the reason Varro gives when he confesses
that he had written first concerning human things, and after-
wards of divine thinirs, because these divine thincjs were in-
stituted by men : — " As the painter is before the painted
tablet, the mason before the edifice, so states are before those
things which are instituted by states." But he says that he
would have written first concerning the gods, afterwards con-
cerning men, if lio had been writing concerning the Avhole
nature of the gods, — as if he were really writing concerning
some portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods ; or as if,
indeed, some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods
ought not to be put before that of men. ITow, then, comes it
that in tlmse tlirce last books, when he is diligently explain-
ing the certain, uncertain, and select gods, he seems to pass
over no portion of the nature of the gods ? "\^^ly, then, does
he say, " If we had been writing on tlie whole nature of the
gods, we would first have finished the divine things before we

BOOK VI.] VARRO'S DIVISION OF HIS SUBJECT. 237

touched the human ? " For he either writes concerning the
whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion of it,
or concerning no part of it at all. If concerning it all, it is
certainly to be put before human things ; if concerning some
part of it, why should it not, from the very nature of the case,
precede human things ? Is not even some part of the gods
to be preferred to the whole of humanity ? But if it is too
much to prefer a part of the divine to all human things, that
part is certainly worthy to be preferred to the Eomans at
least. For he writes the books concerning human things, not
Avith reference to the whole world, but only to Eome ; which
books he says he had properly placed, in the order of writing,
before the books on divine things, like a painter before the
painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most openly
confessing that, as a picture or a structure, even these divine
things were instituted by men. There remains only the third
supposition, that he is to be understood to have wTitten con-
cerning no divine nature, but that he did not wish to say
this openly, but left it to the intelligent to infer ; for when
one says " not all," usage understands that to mean " some,"
but it may be understood as meaning none, because that which
is none is neither all nor some. In fact, as he himself says,
if he had been writing concerning all the nature of the gods,
its due place would have been before human things in the
order of writing. But, as the truth declares, even though
Varro is silent, the divine nature should have taken precedence
of Koman things, though it were not all, but only some. But
it is properly put after, therefore it is none. His arrangement,
therefore, was due, not to a desire to give human things priority
to divine things, but to his unwillingness to prefer false things
to true. For in what he wrote on human things, he followed
the history of affairs ; but in what he wrote concerning those
things which they call divine, what else did he foUow but
mere conjectures about vain things ? This, doubtless, is what,
in a subtle manner, he wished to signify ; not only writing
concerning divine things after the human, but even giving
a reason why he did so ; for if he had suppressed this, some,
perchance, would have defended his doing so in one way, and
some in another. But in that very reason lie has rendered,

238 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

lie has left nothing for men to conjecture at will, and has suf-
liciently proved that he preferred men to the institutions of
men, not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus
he confessed that, in writing the books concerning divine
things, he did not write concerning the truth which belongs
to nature, but the falseness which belongs to error; wliich
he has elsewhere expressed more openly (as I have mentioned
in the fourth book^), saying that, had he been founding a new
city himself, he would have written according to the order of
nature ; but as he had only found an old one, he could not
but follow its custom.

5. Concerning the three kinds of theology according to Varro, namely, one
fabulous, the other natural, tlie third civil.

Now what are we to say of this proposition of his, namely,
that there are three kinds of theology, that is, of the account
which is given of the gods ; and of these, the one is called
mythical, the other physical, and the third civil ? Did the
Latin usage permit, we should call the kind which he has
placed first in order fabular^ but let us call it fabulous,^ for
mythical is derived from the Greek fivOo^, a fable ; but that
the second should be called natural, the usage of speech now
admits ; the third he himself has designated in Latin, calling
it civil.* Then he says, " they call that kind mythical which
tlie poets chiefly use ; physical, that wliich the philosophers
use ; civil, that which the people use. As to the first I have
mentioned," says he, " in it are many fictions, which are con-
trary to the dignity and nature of the immortals. For we
find in it that one god has been born from the head, another
from the thigh, another from drops of blood ; also, in this
we find that gods have stolen, committed adultery, served
men ; in a word, in this all manner of things are attributed
to the gods, such as may befall, not merely any man, but
even the most contemptible man." He certainly, where
he could, where he dared, where he thouglit he could do
it with impunity, has manifested, without any of the hazi-
ness of ambiguity, how great injury was done to the nature
of the gods by lying fables ; fur he was speaking, not con-
cerning natural theology, not concerning civil, but concerning

* Ch. 31. * Fahularc. ' Fahulosum. ^ Civile.

BOOK VL] VARRO'S THREE KINDS OF THEOLOGY. 239

fabulous theology, which he thought he could freely find fault
with.

Let us see, now, what he says concerning the second kind.
"The second kind which I have explained," he says, "is that
concerning which philosophers have left many books, in which
they treat such questions as these : what gods there are, where
they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time
they liave existed, or if they have existed from eternity ;
whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes ; or of number,
as Pythagoras ; or of atoms, as Epicurus says ; and other such
things, which men's ears can more easily hear inside the walls
of a school than outside in the Forum." He finds fault with
nothing in this kind of theology which they call jpliysical, and
which belongs to philosophers, except that he has related their
controversies among themselves, through which there has arisen
a multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless he has removed
this kind from the Forum, that is, from the populace, but he
has shut it up in schools. But that first kind, most false and
most base, he has not removed from the citizens. Oh, the reli-
gious ears of the people, and among them even those of the
Eomans, that are not able to bear what the philosophers dispute
concerning the gods ! But when the poets sing and stage-
players act such things as are derogatory to the dignity and
the nature of the immortals, such as may befall not a man
merely, but the most contemptible man, they not only bear,
but willingly listen to. iN'or is this all, but they even con-
sider that these things please the gods, and that they are
propitiated by them.

But some one may say. Let us distinguish these two kinds
of theology, the mythical and the physical, — that is, the
fabulous and the natural, — from this civil kind about which
we are now speaking. Anticipating this, he himself has dis-
tinguished them. Let us see now how he explains the civil
theology itself. I see, indeed, why it should be distinguished
as fabulous, even because it is false, because it is base, because
it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from
the civil, what else is that but to confess that the civil itself
is false ? For if that be natural, what fault has it that it
should be excluded ? And it this which is called civil be not

240 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK \J.

natural, what merit has it that it should be admitted ? This,
in truth, is the cause wliy he wrote first concerning human
things, and afterwards concerning divine things ; since in
divine things he did not follow nature, but the institution
of men. Let ns look at this civil theology of his. "The
j third kind," says he, " is that wliich citizens in cities, and
// especially the priests, ought to know and to administer. From
it is to be known what god each one may suitably worship,
what sacred rites and sacrifices each one may suitably per-
form." Let ns still attend to what follows. " The first theo-
logy," he says, " is especially adapted to the theatre, the second
to the world, the third to the city." Who does not see to
whicli he gives the palm ? Certainly to the second, which
he said above is that of the philosophers. For he testifies
that this pertains to the world, than which they think there
is notliing better. But tliose two theologies, the first and the
third, — to wit, those of the theatre and of the city, — has he
distinguished them or united them ? For although we see
that the city is in the world, we do not see that it follows
that any things belonging to tlie city pertain to the world.
For it is possible that such things may be worshipped and
believed in the city, according to false opinions, as have no
existence either in the world or out of it. But where is the
theatre but in the city ? Who instituted the theatre but the
state ? For what purpose did it constitute it but for scenic
plays ? And to what class of things do scenic plays belong
but to those divine things concerning which these books of
Yarro's are written with so much ability ?

G. Concerning tlie mythic, that is, the fabulous, theology, and the civile
against Varro.

O ^Larcus Varro ! thou art the most acute, and without
doubt the most learned, but still a man, not God, — now lifted
up by the Spirit of God to see and to announce divine things,
thou seest, indeed, that divine things are to be separated from
human trifles and lies, but thou fearest to offend those most
corrupt opinions of the populace, and their customs in public
superstitions, wliich tliou thyself, wlien thou considerest them
on all sides, perceivest, and all your literature loudly pro-
nounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even

BOOK YI.] YARTIO'S THEOLOGY DISCUSSED. 241

of sucli gods as the frailty of tlie human mind supposes to
exist in the elements of this world. What can the most
excellent human talent do here ? Wliat can human learn-
ing, though manifold, avail thee in this perplexity ? Thou
desirest to worship the natural gods ; thou art compelled to
worship the civil. Thou hast found some of the gods to he
fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely what thou
thinkest, and, whether thou wiliest or not, thou wettest there-
with even the civil gods. Thou sayest, forsooth, that the
fabulous are adapted to the theatre, the natural to the world,
and the civil to the city ; though the world is a divine work,
but cities and theatres are the works of men, and though the
gods who are laughed at in the theatre are not other than
those who are adored in the temples ; and ye do not exhibit
games in honour of other gods than those to whom ye im-
molate victims. How much more freely and more subtly
wouldst thou have decided these hadst thou said that some
gods are natural, others established by men; and concerning
those who have been so established, the literature of the poets
gives one account, and that of the priests another, — both of
wldch are, nevertheless, so friendly the one to the other,
through fellowship in falsehood, that they are both pleasing
to the demons, to whom the doctrine of the truth is hostile.

That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being
put aside for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed,
we ask if any one is really content to seek a hope for
eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods ? Perish
the thought ! The true God avert so wild and sacrilegious
a madness ! What, is eternal life to be asked from those
gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things pro-
pitiate, in which their own crimes are represented ? No one,
as I think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and
furious impiety. So then, neither by the fabulous nor by
the civil theology does any one obtain eternal life. For the
one sows base things concerning the gods by feigning them,
the other reaps by cherishing them ; the one scatters lies, the
other gathers them together ; the one pursues divine things
with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine things
the plays wliich are made up of these crimes ; the one sounds

VOL. I. Q

242 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VT.

abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods,
the otlicr consecrates these for tlie festivities of the gods
themselves ; the one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the
gods, tlie other loves them ; the one gives forth or feigns, the
other either attests the true or delights in the false. Both
are base ; both are damnable. But the one which is theatrical
teaches public abomination, and tliat one which is of the city
adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal life be
hoped for from these, by wliich this short and temporal life
is polluted ? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life
if they insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our
assent ? and does not the society of demons pollute the life,
who are worsliipped with their own crimes ? — if with true
crimes, how wicked the demons ! if with false, how wicked
the worship !

When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some
one who is very ignorant of these matters that only those
things concerning the gods which are sung in the songs of
the poets and acted on the stage are unworthy of the divine
majesty, and ridiculous, and too detestable to be celebrated,
whilst those sacred things which not stage-players but priests
perform are pure and free from all unseemliness. Had this
been so, never would any one have thought that these theatri-
cal abominations should be celebrated in their honour, never
would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed
to them. But men are in nowise ashamed to perform these
things in the theatres, because similar things are carried on
in the temples. In short, when tlie fore-mentioned author
attempted to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous
and natural, as a sort of tliird and distinct kind, he wished it
to be understood to be rather tempered by both tlian separated
from either. For he says that those things which the poets
write are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what
the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people
to pry into. " Which," says he, " differ in such a way, that
nevertheless not a few things from both of them have been
taken to the account of the civil theology ; wherefore we will
indicate what the civil theology has in common with that of
the poet, though it ought to be more closely connected with

BOOK VI.] THE FABULOUS AND CIVIL THEOLOGIES. 243

the theology of philosophers." Civil theology is therefore not
quite disconnected from that of the poets. Nevertheless, in
another place, concerning the generations of the gods, he says
that the people are more inclined toward the poets than toward
the physical theologists. For in this place he said what ought
to be done ; in that other place, what was really done. He
said that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the
poets for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from
the poets' writings, which the people ought not to follow, are
the crimes of the gods ; which, nevertheless, amuse both the
people and the gods. For, for amusement's sake, he says, the
poets write, and not for that of utility ; nevertheless they write
such things as the gods will desire, and the people perform.

7. Concerning the likeness and agreement of the Jahulous and civil theologies.

That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic,
and full of all baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into
the civil theology; and part of that theology, which in its
totality is deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation and
rejection, is pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed;
— not at all an incongruous part, as I have undertaken to
show, and one which, being alien to the whole body, was
unsuitably attached to and suspended from it, but a part
entirely congruous with, and most harmoniously fitted to
the rest, as a member of the same body. For what else
do those images, forms, ages, sexes, characteristics of the
gods show ? If the poets have Jupiter with a beard, and
Mercury beardless, have not the priests the same ? Is the
Priapus of the priests less obscene than the Priapus of the
players ? Does he receive the adoration of worshippers in a
different form from that in which he moves about the staire
for the amusement of spectators ? Is not Saturn old and
Apollo young in the shrines where their images stand, as well
as when represented by actors' masks ? Why are Forculus,
who presides over doors, and Limentinus, who presides over
thresholds and lintels, male gods, and Cardea between them
feminine, who presides over hinges ? Are not those things
found in books on divine things, which grave poets have
deemed unworthy of their verses ? Does the Diana of the

244 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

theatre carry arms, whilst the Diana of the city is simply a
virgin ? Is the stage Apollo a lyrist, but the Delphic Apollo
ignorant of this art ? But these things are decent compared
with the more shameful things. AMiat was thought of Jupiter
himself by those who placed his wet nurse in the Capitol ?
Did they not boar witness to Euhemerus, who, not with the
garrulity of a fable-teller, but with the gravity of an historian
who had diligently investigated the matter, ^^Tote that all such
gods had been men and mortals ? And they who appointed
the Epulones as parasites at the table of Jupiter, what else did
they wish for but mimic sacred rites ? For if any mimic had
said that parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table,
he would assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth
laughter. Yarro said it, — not when he was mocking, but when
he was commending the gods did he say it. His books on
divine, not on human, things testify that he wrote this, —
not where he set forth the scenic games, but where he ex-
plained the Capitoline laws. In a word, he is conquered, and
confesses that, as they made the gods with a human form, so
they believed that they are delighted with human pleasures.
^ For also malign spirits were not so wanting to their own
/business as not to confirm noxious opinions in the minds of
men by converting them into sport. "WTience also is that
storv about the sacristan of Hercules, which savs that, havini::
nothing to do, he took to playing at dice as a pastime, throw-
ing them alternately with the one hand for Hercules, with the
other for himself, with this understanding, that if he should
win, he should from the funds of the temple prepare himself
a supper, and hire a mistress ; but if Hercules should win
the game, he himself should, at his own expense, provide the
same for the pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been
beaten by himself, as though by Hercules, he gave to the god
Hercules the supper he owed liim. and also the most noble
harlot I^arentina. But she, having fallen asleep in the temple,
dreamed that Hercules had had intercourse w4th her, and had
said to her that she would find her payment with the youth
whom she sliould first meet on leaving the temple, and that
she was to believe tliis to be paid to her by Hercules. And
so the first youth that met her on going out was the wealthy

BOOK VI.] ABOMINATION OF THE CIVIL THEOLOGY. 245

Tarutius, wlip kept lier a long time, and when he died left her
his heir. She, having obtained a most ample fortune, that she
should not seem ungrateful for the divine hire, in her turn
made the Eoman people her heir, which she thought to be
most acceptable to the deities ; and, having disappeared, the
will was found. By which meritorious conduct they say that
she gained divine honours.

Xow had these things been feigned by the poets and acted
by the mimics, they would without any doubt have been said
to pertain to the fabulous theology, and would have been judged
worthy to be separated from the dignity of the civil theology.
But when these shameful things, — not of the poets, but of the
people ; not of the mimics, but of the sacred things ; not of
the theatres, but of the temples, that is, not of the fabulous,
but of the civil theology, — are reported by so great an author,
not in vain do the actors represent with theatrical art the
baseness of the gods, which is so great ; but surely in vain do
the priests attempt, by rites called sacred, to represent their
nobleness of character, which has no existence. There are
sacred rites of Juno ; and these are celebrated in her beloved
island, Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter.
There are sacred rites of Ceres, in which Proserpine is sought
for, having been carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites
of Venus, in which, her beloved Adonis being slain by a boar's
tooth, the lovely youth is lamented. There are sacred rites of
the mother of the gods, in which the beautiful youth Atys,
loved by her, and castrated by her thi'ough a woman's jealousy,
is deplored by men who have suffered the like calamity, whom
they call Galli. Since, then, these things are more unseemly
than all scenic abomination, why is it that they strive to
separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet concern-
ing the gods, as, forsooth, pertaining to the theatre, from the
civil theology which they wish to belong to the city, as though
they were separating from noble and worthy things, things un-
worthy and base ? Wherefore there is more reason to thank
the stage-actors, who liave spared the eyes of men, and have
not laid bare by theatrical exhibition all tlie things which are
hid by the walls of the temples. AMiat good is to be thought
of their sacred rites which are concealed in darkness, when

246 THE riTY OF COD. [dook VI.

those wliicli are brought forth into the light are so detestable ?
And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact
in secret through the agency of mutilated and effeminate men.
Yet they have not been able to conceal those same men miser-
ably and vilely enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade
whom they can that they transact anything holy through such
men, who, they cannot deny, are numbered, and live among
their sacred things. We know not what they transact, but
we know through whom they transact ; for we know what
things are transacted on the stage, where never, even in a
chorus of harlots, hath one who is mutilated or an effeminate
appeared. And, nevertheless, even these things are acted by
vile and infamous characters ; for, indeed, they ought not to
be acted by men of good character. What, then, are those
sacred rites, for the performance of which holiness has chosen
such men as not even the obscenitv of the stacre has admitted ?

8. Concerning the interpretations, consisting of natural explanations, which tlie
pagan teachers attempt to show/or their gods.

But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that
is, natural interpretations, showing their natural meaning ;
as though in this disputation we were seeking physics and
not theology, which is the account, not of nature, but of God.
For although He who is the true God is God, not by opinion,
but by nature, nevertheless all nature is not God; for there
is certainly a nature of man, of a beast, of a tree, of a stone,
— none of which is God. For if, when the question is con-
cerning the mother of the gods, that from which the whole
system of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother of
the gods is the earth, wliy do we make furtlier inquiry ? why
do we carry our investigation through all the rest of it ?
What can more manifestly favour thoni who say that all those
gods were men ? For tliey are eartli-born in the sense that
the earth is their mother. But in the true theology the earth
is the work, not the mother, of God. lUit in whatever way
their sacred rites may be interpreted, and whatever reference
they may have to the nature of things, it is not according to
nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates.
This di.sease, this crime, this abomination, has a recognised
place among those sacred things, though even depraved men

BOOK VI.] RELATION OF CIVIL TO NATURAL THEOLOGY. 247

will scarcely be compelled by torments to confess tbey are
guilty of it. Again, if these sacred rites, which are proved to
be fouler than scenic abominations, are excused and justified
on the ground that they have their own interpretations, by
which they are shown to symbolize the nature of things, why
are not the poetical things in like manner excused and justified?
For many have interpreted even these in like fashion, to such
a degree that even that which they say is the most monstrous
and most horrible, — namely, that Saturn devoured his own
children, — has been interpreted by some of them to mean
that length of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn,
consumes whatever it begets; or that, as the same Varro
thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds which fall back again into the
earth from whence they spring. And so one interprets it in
one way, and one in another. And the same is to be said
of all the rest of this theology.

And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is
censured, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpreta-
tions belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology,
which is that of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology,
concerning which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain
to cities and peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, be-
cause it has invented unworthy things concerning the gods.
Of which, I wot, this is the secret : that those most acute and
learned men, by whom those things weve written, understood
that both theologies ought to be rejected, — to wit, both that
fabulous and this civil one, — but the former they dared to
reject, the latter they dared not ; the former thay set forth to
be censured, the latter they showed to be very like it ; not that
it might be chosen to be held in preference to the other,
but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected
together with it. And thus, without danger to those who
feared to censure the civil theology, both of them being brought
into contempt, that theology which they call natural might
find a place in better disposed minds ; for the civil and the
fabulous are both fabulous and both civil. He who shall
wisely inspect the vanities and obscenities of both will find
that they are both fabulous ; and he who shall direct his
attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous theo-

248 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

logy in the festivals of the civil gods, and in the divine rites
of the cities, will find they are both civil. How, tlien, can
the power of giving eternal life be attributed to any of those
gods whose own images and sacred rites convict them of being
most like to the fabulous gods, which are most openly repro-
bated, in forms, ages, sex, cliaracteristics, marriages, generations,
rites ; in all whicli things they are understood either to have
been men, and to have had their sacred rites and solemnities
instituted in their lionour according to the life or death of
each of tliem, the demons suggesting and confirming tliis error,
or certainly most foul spirits, who, taking advantage of some
occasion or otlier, have stolen into the minds of men to deceive
them ?

9. Concerning the special offices of the gods.

And as to those very offices of the gods, so meanly and so
minutely portioned out, so tliat they say that they ought to be
supplicated, each one according to his special function, — about
which we have spoken much already, though not all that is to
be said concerning it, — are they not more consistent with
mimic buffoonery than divine majesty ? If any one should
use two nurses for his infant, one of whom should give nothing
but food, the other nothing but drink, as these make use of
two goddesses for this purpose, Educa and Potina, he should
certainly seem to be foolish, and to do in liis house a thing
worthy of a mimic. They would have Liber to have been
named from " liberation," because through him males at the
time of copulation are liberated by the emission of the seed.
They also say that Libera (the same in their opinion as Venus)
exercises the same function in the case of women, because they
say that they also emit seed ; and they also say that on tliis
account the same part of the male and of tlie female is placed
in the temple, that of the male to Liber, and that of the female
to Libera. To these things they add the women assigned to
Liber, and the wine for exciting lust. Thus the Bacchanalia
are celebrated with the utmost insanity, with respect to which
Varro himself confesses that such things would not be done
by the Bacchanals except their minds were highly excited.
These things, however, afterwards displeased a saner senate,
and it ordered them to be discontinued. Here, at length, they

BOOK VI.] SPECIAL OFFICES OF THE GODS. 249

perhaps perceived how much power unclean sphits, when held
to be gods, exercise over the minds of men. These things,
certainly, were not to be done in the theatres ; for there they
play, not rave, although to have gods who are delighted with
such plays is very like raving.

But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between
the religious and the superstitious man, saying that the gods
are feared^ by the superstitious man, but are reverenced''^ as
parents by the religious man, not feared as enemies ; and that
they are all so good that they will more readily spare those
who are impious than hurt one who is innocent ? And yet he
tells us that three gods are assigned as guardians to a woman
after she has been delivered, lest the god Silvanus come in
and molest her ; and that in order to signify the presence of
these protectors, three men go round the house during the night,
and first strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a pestle,
and the third time sweep it with a brush, in order that these
symbols of agriculture having been exhibited, the god Silvanus
miG^ht be hindered from enterinc^, because neither are trees cut
down or pruned without a hatchet, neither is grain ground
without a pestle, nor corn heaped up without a besom. Now
from these three things three gods have been named : Inter-
cidona, from the cut^ made by the hatchet ; Pilumnus, from the
pestle ; Diverra, from the besom ; — by which guardian gods the
woman who has been delivered is preserved against the power
of the god Silvanus. Thus the guardianship of kindly-disposed
gods would not avail against the malice of a mischievous god,
unless they were three to one, and fought against him, as it
were, with the opposing emblems of cultivation, who, being an
inhabitant of the woods, is rough, horrible, and uncultivated.
Is this the innocence of the gods ? Is this their concord ?
Are these .the health-giving deities of the cities, more ridiculous
than the things which are laughed at in the theatres ?

AVlien a male and a female are united, the god Jugatinus pre-
sides. Well, let this be borne with. But the married woman
must be brought home : the god Domiducus also is invoked.
That she may be in the house, the god Domitius is introduced.
That she may remain with her husband, the goddess Man-

^ Timeri. ^ Vereri. ^ Intercido, I cut or cleave.

250 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

turnoe is used. What more is rc([uiied ? Let human modesty
Le spared. Let the lust of flesh and blood go on with the
rest, the secret of shame being respected. Why is the bed-
chamber fdled with a crowd of deites, when even the grooms-
men^ have departed ? And, moreover, it is so filled, not that
in consideration of their presence more regard may be paid to
chastity, but that by their help the woman, naturally of the
weaker sex, and trembling with the novelty of her situation,
may the more readily yield her virginity. For there are the
goddess Virginiensis, and the god-father Subigus, and the
goddess-mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda, and Venus,
and Priapus.^ What is this ? If it was absolutely necessary
that a man, labouring at this work, should be helped by the
gods, might not some one god or goddess have been sufficient ?
Was Venus not sufficient alone, who is even said to be named
from this, that without her power a woman does not cease to
be a virgin ? If tliere is any shame in men, which is not in
the deities, is it not the case that, when the married couple
believe that so many gods of either sex are present, and busy
at this work, they are so much affected with shame, that the
man is less moved, and the woman more reluctant ? And
certainly, if the goddess Virginiensis is present to loose the
virgin's zone, if the god Subigus is present that the virgin
may be got under the man, if the goddess Prema is present
that, having been got under him, she may be kept down, and
may not move herself, what has the goddess Pertunda to do
there ? Let her blush ; let her go forth. Let the husband
himself do something. It is disgraceful that any one but him-
self should do that from which slie gets her name. But per-
haps she is tolerated because she is said to be a goddess, and
not a god. For if she were believed to be a male, and were
called Pertundiis, the husband would demand more help against
liim fur the cliastity of his wife than the newly-delivered
woman against Silvanus. But why am I saying this, when
Priapus, too, is there, a male to excess, upon whose immense
and most unsightly member the newly-married bride is com-

' Paranymph'i.

' Comp. TL-rtullian, Adv. Xnt. ii. 11 ; Arnubius, Contra Gent. iv. ; Lactantius,
Iii^t. i. 20.

BOOK VI.] DELATION OF CIVIL TO FABULOUS THEOLOGY. 251

manded to sit, according to tlie most honourable and most
religious custom of matrons ?

Let them go on, and let them attempt with all the subtlety
they can to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous,
the cities from the theatres, the temples from the stages, the
sacred things of the priests from the songs of the poets,
as honourable things from base things, truthful things from
fallacious, grave from light, serious from ludicrous, desirable
things from things to be rejected, we understand what they
do. They are aw^are that that theatrical and fabulous theology
hangs by the civil, and is reflected back upon it from the songs
of the poets as from a mirror ; and thus, that theology having
been exposed to view which they do not dare to condemn, they
more freely assail and censure that picture of it, in order that
those who perceive what they mean may detest this very face
itself of which that is the picture, — which, however, the gods
themselves, as though seeing themselves in the same mirror,
love so much, that it is better seen in both of them who and
what they are. Whence, also, they have compelled their wor-
shippers, with terrible commands, to dedicate to them the un-
cleanness of the fabulous theology, to put them among their
solemnities, and reckon them among divine things ; and thus
they have both shown themselves more manifestly to be most
impure spirits, and have made that rejected and reprobated
theatrical theology a member and a part of this, as it were,
chosen and approved theology of the city, so that, though the
whole is disgraceful and false, and contains in it fictitious
gods, one part of it is in the literature of the priests, the other
in the songs of the poets. Whether it may have other parts
is another question. At present, I think, I have sufficiently
shown, on account of the division of Varro, that the theology
of the city and that of the theatre belong to one civil theology.
^Vherefore, because they are both equally disgraceful, absurd,
shameful, faJse, far be it from religious men to hope for eternal
life from either the one or the other.

In fine, even Varro himself, in his account and enumeration
of the gods, starts from the moment of a man's conception.
He commences the series of those gods who take charge of
man with Janus, carries it on to the death of the man do-

252 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

crepit with age, and terminates it with tlie goddess Najnia,
who is sung at the funerals of the aged. After that, he begins
to give an account of the other gods, whose province is not
man himself, but man's belongings, as food, clothing, and all
tliat is necessary for this life ; and, in the case of all these,
he explains what is the special ofiice of each, and for what
each ought to be supplicated. But with all this scrupulous
and comprehensive diligence, he has neither proved the exist-
ence, nor so much as mentioned the name, of any god from
whom eternal life is to be sought, — the one object for which
we are Christians. Who, then, is so stupid as not to perceive
that this man, by setting forth and opening up so diligently
the civil theology, and by exhibiting its likeness to that fabu-
lous, shameful, and disgraceful theology, and also by teaching
that that fabulous sort is also a part of this other, was labour-
ing to obtain a place in the minds of men for none but that
natural theology which he says pertains to philosophers, with
such subtlety that he censures the fabulous, and, not daring
openly to censure the civil, shows its censurable character by
simply exhibiting it ; and thus, both being reprobated by the
judgment of men of right understanding, the natural alone re-
mains to be chosen ? But concerning this in its own place, by
the help of the true God, we have to discuss more diligently.

10. Concerning the liberty of Seneca, who more vehemently censured the civil
theology than Varro did the fahidous.

Tlmt liberty, in truth, which this man wanted, so that
ho did not dare to censure that theology of the city, which
is very similar to the theatrical, so openly as he did the
tlieatrical itself, was, though not fully, yet in part possessed
Ity Annceus Seneca, whom we have some evidence to show to
liave flourished in the times of our apostles. It was in part
])osscssod by him, I say, for he possessed it in writing, but
not in living. For in that book whicli he wrote against
su])erstition,^ he more copiously and vehemently censured
tluit civil and urban theology than Varro the theatrical and
fabulous. For, when speaking concerning images, he says,
" They dedicate images of the sacred and inviolable immortals
in most worthless and motionless matter. Tliey give them
* Mentioned also by TertuUian, Ap'A. 12, but not exUnt.

BOOK VI.] SENECA ON THE CIVIL THEOLOGY. 253

the appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some make
them of mixed sex, and heterogeneous bodies. They call
them deities, when they are such that if they should get
breath and should suddenly meet them, they would be held
to be monsters." Then, a while afterwards, when extolling
the natural theology, he had expounded the sentiments of
certain philosophers, he opposes to himself a question, and
says, " Here some one says. Shall I believe that the heavens
and the earth are gods, and that some are above the moon
and some below it ? Shall I bring forward either Plato or the
peripatetic Strato, one of whom made God to be Avithout a
body, the other without a mind?" In answer to which he
says, "And, really, what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius,
or Eomulus, or TuUus Hostilius appear to thee ? Tatius de-
clared the divinity of the goddess Cloacina ; Eomulus that of
Picus and Tiberinus ; TuUus Hostilius that of Pavor and Pallor,
the most disagreeable affections of men, the one of which
is the agitation of the mind under fright, the other that of the
body, not a disease, indeed, but a change of colour." Wilt
thou rather believe that these are deities, and receive them
into heaven ? But with what freedom he has written con-
cerning the rites themselves, cruel and shameful ! " One,"
he says, " castrates himself, another cuts his arms. Where
wiU they find room for the fear of these gods when angry,
who use such means of gaining their favour when propitious ?
But gods who wish to be worshipped in this fashion should
be worshipped in none. So great is the frenzy of the mind
when perturbed and driven from its seat, that the gods are
propitiated by men in a manner in which not even men of
the greatest ferocity and fable-renowned cruelty vent their
rage. Tyrants have lacerated the limbs of some ; they never
ordered any one to lacerate his own. For the gratification of
royal lust, some have been castrated ; but no one ever, by
the command of his lord, laid violent hands on himself to
emasculate himself They kill themselves in the temples.
They supplicate with their wounds and with their blood. It
any one has time to see the things they do and the things
they suffer, he will find so many things unseemly for men of
respectability, so unworthy of freemen, so unhke the doings

254 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VI.

of sane men, that no one would doubt that they are mad, had
they been mad with the minority ; but now the multitude of
the insane is the defence of their sanity."

He next relates those things which are wont to be done
in the Capitol, and with the utmost intrepidity insists that
they are such things as one could only believe to be done
by men making sport, or by madmen. For, having spoken
with derision of this, that in the Egyptian sacred rites Osiris,
being lost, is lamented for, but straightway, when found, is
the occasion of great joy by his reappearance, because both
the losing and the finding of him are feigned ; and yet that
grief and that joy which are elicited thereby from those who
have lost nothing and found nothing are real ; — having, I say,
so spoken of this, he says, " Still there is a fixed time for
this frenzy. It is tolerable to go mad once in the year. Go
into the Capitol. One is suggesting divine commands ^ to a
god ; another is telling the hours to Jupiter ; one is a lictor ;
another is an anointer, who with the mere movement of his
arms imitates one anointing. There are women who arrange
the hair of Juno and Minerva, standing far away not only
from her image, but even from her temple. These move their
fingers in the manner of hair-dressers. There are some women
who hold a mirror. There are some who are calling the gods
to assist them in court. There are some who are holding up
documents to them, and are explaining to tliem their cases.
A learned and distinguished comedian, now old and decrepit,
was daily playing the mimic in the Capitol, as though the gods
would gladly Ije spectators of that which men had ceased to
care about. Every kind of artificers working for the immortal
gods is dwelling there in idleness." And a little after he says,
" Nevertheless these, though they give themselves up to the
gods for purposes superfluous enough, do not do so for any
abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women in
the Capitol who think they are beloved by Jupiter; nor are
they frightened even by the look of the, if you will believe
the poets, most wrathful Juno."

' Numina. Another roiuiintj is nomina ; and witli eitlior ro.iilin^ anotlicr trans-
lation is admiiwiblc : "One is announcing to a god the names (or gods) who
salute him."

BOOK VL] senega's CONTEMPT OF POPULAR OPINION. 255

This liberty Varro did not enjoy. It was only the poetical
theology he seemed to censure. The civil, which this man
cuts to pieces, he was not bold enough to impugn. But if we
attend to the truth, the temples where these things are per-
formed are far worse than the theatres where they are repre-
sented. Whence, with respect to these sacred rites of the
civil theology, Seneca preferred, as the best course to be fol-
lowed by a wise man, to feign respect for them in act, but to
have no real regard for them at heart. " AH which things,"
he says, " a wise man will observe as being commanded by
the laws, but not as being pleasing to the gods." And a little
after he says, " And what of this, that we unite the gods in
marriage, and that not even naturally, for we join brothers
and sisters ? We marry Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan,
Salacia to E"eptune. Some of them we leave unmarried, as
though there were no match for them, which is surely need-
less, especially when there are certain unmarried goddesses,
as Populonia, or Fulgora, or the goddess Eumina, for whom
I am not astonished that suitors have been awanting. All
this ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition of ages has
amassed, we ought," he says, " to adore in such a way as to re-
member all the while that its worship belongs rather to custom
than to reality." Wherefore, neither those laws nor customs
instituted in the civil theology that which was pleasing to the
gods, or which pertained to reality. But this man, whom
philosophy had made, as it were, free, nevertheless, because
he was an illustrious senator of the Eoman people, wor-
shipped what he censured, did what he condemned, adored
what he reproached, because, forsooth, philosophy had taught
him something great, — namely, not to be superstitious in the
world, but, on account of the laws of cities and the customs
of men, to be an actor, not on the stage, but in the temples,
— conduct the more to be condemned, that those things which
he was deceitfully acting he so acted that the people thought
he was acting sincerely. But a stage-actor would rather
delight people by acting plays than take tliem in by false
pretences.

11. What Seneca thought concerning the Jews.

Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology,

25 6 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VT.

also fouiiJ fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and
especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in
keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idle-
ness about the seventh part of their life, and also many
things w^hich demand immediate attention are damaged. The
Christians, however, who were abeady most hostile to the
Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame,
lest, if he praised them, he should do so against the ancient
custom of his country, or, perhaps, if he should blame them,
he should do so against his own will.

^Micn he was speaking concerning those Jews, he said,
" ^Vhcn, meanwhile, the customs of that most accursed nation
have gained such strength that they have been now received in
all lands, the conquered have given laws to the conquerors."
By these words he expresses his astonishment; and, not know-
ing what the providence of God was leading him to say, sub-
joins in plain words an opinion by which he showed what
he thouf^ht about the meaninir of those sacred institutions :
" For," he says, " those, however, know the cause of their rites,
whilst the greater part of the people know not why they per-
form theirs." But concerning the solemnities of the Jews,
either why or how far they were instituted by divine autho-
rity, and afterwards, in due time, by the same authority taken
away from the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal
life was revealed, we have both spoken elsewhere, especially
when we were treatinjr aGrainst the Manicha?ans, and also intend
to speak in this work in a more suitable place.

12. That when once the vanity of the god<t of the nations has been exposed, it
cannot be doubted tJuit they are unable to bestow eternal life on any one.,
when they cannot afford help even with respect to the things of this temporal
life.

Now, since there are three theologies, which the Greeks
call respectively mythical, ])hysical, and political, and which
may be called in I^-itin iabulous, natural, and civil ; and since
neither from tlie fabulous, which even the worshippei*s of
many and false gods have themselves most freely censured,
nor from the civil, of which that is convicted of being a part,
or even worse than it, can eternal life be hoped for from any
of these theologies, — if any one thinks that what has been

BOOK VI.] CONCLUSION. 257

said in this book is not enough for him, let hun also add to
it the many and various dissertations concerning God as the
giver of felicity, contained in the former books, especially the
fourth one.

For to what but to felicity should men consecrate them-
selves, were felicity a goddess ? However, as it is not a
goddess, but a gift of God, to what God but the giver of
happiness ought we to consecrate ourselves, who piously love
eternal life, in which there is true and full felicity ? But I
think, from what has been said, no one ought to doubt that
none of those gods is the giver of happiness, who are wor-
shipped with such shame, and who, if they are not so wor-
shipped, are more shamefully enraged, and thus confess that
they are most foul spirits. Moreover, how can he give eternal
life who cannot give happiness ? For we mean by eternal life
that life where there is endless happiness. For if the soul
live in eternal punishments, by which also those unclean
spirits shall be tormented, that is rather eternal death than
eternal life. For there is no greater or worse death than
when death never dies. But because the soul from its very
nature, being created immortal, cannot be without some kind
of life, its utmost death is alienation from the life of God in
an eternity of punishment. So, then, He only who gives true
happiness gives eternal life, that is, an endlessly happy life.
And since those gods whom this civil theology worships have
been proved to be unable to give this happiness, they ought
not to be worshipped on account of those temporal and terres-
trial things, as we showed in the five former books, much less
on account of eternal life, which is to be after death, as
we have sought to show in this one book especially, whilst
the other books also lend it their co-operation. But since the
strength of inveterate habit has its roots very deep, if any one
thinks that I have not disputed sufficiently to show that tliis
civil tlieology ought to be rejected and shunned, let him attend
to another book which, with God's help, is to be joined to this
one.

VOL. L

258 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIT.

BOOK SEVEXTir.

ARGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK IT IS SHOWN THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS NOT OBTAINED BY THE
WORSHIP OF JANUS, JUPITER, SATURN, AND THE OTHER "SELECT GODS " OF
THE CIVIL THEOLOGY.

PREFACE.

IT will be the duty of those who are endowed mth quicker
and better understandings, in whose case the former books
are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to effect their intended
object, to bear with me with patience and equanimity wliilst
I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and
eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth
of piety, which the long-continued error of the human race
has fixed very deeply in unenlightened minds ; co-operating
also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace of
Him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and
on whose help I depend in my work ; and, for the sake of
others, such should not deem superfluous what they feel to be
no longer necessary for themselves. A very great matter is
at stake w^hen the true and truly holy divinity is commended
to men as that which they ought to seek after and to wor-
ship ; not, however, on account of the transitory vapour of
mortal Yii'o,, but on account of life eternal, which alone is
blessed, althougli tlie help necessary for this frail life we are
now living is also afforded us by it.

1 . Whether, since it is evident that Deity is not to be found in the civil theology,
we. are to believe that it is to be found in the select gods.

If there is any one wliom the sixtli book, which I have last
finished, has not persuaded tliat this divinity, or, so to speak,
deity — for tliis word also our autliors do not hesitate to use,
in order to translate more accurately that which tlie Greeks
call deoTTj^i ; — it there is any one, I say, whom the sLxth book
lias not persuaded tlint tliis di\'inity or deity is not to bo

BOOK VII.] THE SELECT GODS. 259

found in that theology which they call civil, and which
Marcus Varro has explained in sixteen books, — that is, that
the happiness of eternal life is not attainable through the
worship of gods such as states have established to be wor-
shipped, and that in such a form, — perhaps, when he has read
this book, he will not have anything further to desire in order
to the clearing up of this question. For it is possible that
some one may think that at least the select and chief gods,
whom Varro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have
not spoken sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of
the blessed life, which is none other than eternal In respect
to which matter I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps
more wittily than truly, "If gods are selected like onions,
certainly the rest are rejected as bad."-^ I do not say this,
for I see that even from among the select, some are selected
for some greater and more excellent office : as in warfare,
when recruits have been elected, there are some again elected
from among those for the performance of some greater military
service ; and in the church, when persons are elected to be
overseers, certainly the rest are not rejected, since all good
Christians are deservedly called elect ; in the erection of a
building corner stones are elected, though the other stones, which
are destined for other parts of the structure, are not rejected ;
grapes are elected for eating, whilst the others, which we leave
for drinking, are not rejected. There is no need of adducing
many illustrations, since the thing is evident. Wherefore the
selection of certain gods from among many affords no proper
reason why either he who wrote on this subject, or the wor-
shippers of the gods, or the gods themselves, should be spurned.
We ought rather to seek to know what gods these are, and for
what purpose they may appear to have been selected.

2. Who are the select gods, and whether they are held to he exempt from the
offices of the commoner gods.

The following gods, certainly, Varro signalizes as select,
devoting one book to this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn,
Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus,
father Liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus,

' Tert. Apol. 13, "Nee electio sine reprobatione ; " and Ad Nat iones, ii. 9,
"Si dei ut bulbi seliguntur, qui non seliguntur, reprobi pronuiitiantur."

2G0 TIIE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIT.

Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males, and eight
females. Whether are these deities called select, because of
their higher spheres of administration in the world, or because
they have become better known to the people, and more wor-
ship has been expended on them ? If it be on account of the
greater works which are performed by them in the world, we
ought not to have found them among that, as it were, plebeian
crowd ot deities, which has assigned to it the charge of minute
and trifling things. For, first of all, at the conception of a
fcctus, from wliicli point all the works commence which have
been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus him-
self opens the way for the reception of the seed ; there also
is Saturn, on account of the seed itself; there is Liber,^ who
liberates the male by the effusion of the seed ; there is Libera,
whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this
same benefit on the woman, namely, that she also be liberated
by the emission of the seed ; — all these are of the number
of those who are called select. But there is also the goddess
Mena, who presides over the menses ; though the daughter
of Jupiter, ignoble nevertheless. And this province of the
menses the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns
to Juno herself, who is even queen among the select gods; and
here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her step-
daughter, she presides over the same blood. There also are
two gods, exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus — the
one of whom imparts life to the fcetus, and the other sensa-
tion ; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble though they
be, far more than all those noble and select gods bestow. For,
surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole fcetus
which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and
wortliless thing, no better than slime and dust ?

3. 1 1 010 Oiere is no reaxon which can U shovm for the selection of certain god.<,
irhrn the administration of more exalted officts is assigned to many inferiur
gods.

AVliat is the cause, therefore, which hns driven so many
select gods to tliese very small works, in which they arc
excelled by Vitumnus and Sentinus, though little known and

1 Cicero, De Nat. Dior, ii., distinguishes this Liber from Liber Bacclius, son
of Jupiter and Semcle.

BOOK VII.] DEGRADING OFFICES OF SELECT GODS. 261

sunk in obscurity, inasmuch as tliey confer the munificent
gifts of life and sensation ? For the select Janus bestows an
entrance, and, as it were, a door^ for the seed ; the select
Saturn bestows the seed itself; the select Liber bestows on
men the emission of the same seed ; Libera, who is Ceres or
Venus, confers the same on women ; the select Juno confers
(not alone, but together with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter)
the menses, for the growth of that which has been conceived ;
and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnus confers life, whilst the
obscure and ignoble Sentinus confers sensation ; — which two
last things are as much more excellent than the others, as
they themselves are excelled by reason and intellect. For as
those things which reason and understand are preferable to
those which, without intellect and reason, as in the case of
cattle, live and feel ; so also those things which have been
endowed with life and sensation are deservedly preferred to
those things which neither live nor feel. Therefore Vitumnus
the life-giver,^ and Sentinus the sense-giver,^ ought to have
been reckoned among the select gods, rather than Janus the
admitter of seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of seed, and
Liber and Libera the movers and liberators of seed ; w^hich
seed i5 not worth a thought, unless it attain to life and sensa-
tion. Yet these select gifts are not given by select gods, but
by certain unknown, and, considering their dignity, neglected
gods. But if it be replied that Janus has dominion over all
beginnings, and therefore the opening of the way for concep-
tion is not without reason assigned to him ; and that Saturn
has dominion over all seeds, and therefore the sowing of the
seed whereby a human being is generated cannot be excluded
from his operation ; that Liber and Libera have power over the
emission of all seeds, and therefore preside over those seeds
which pertain to the procreation of men ; that Juno presides
over all purgations and births, and therefore she has also
charge of the purgations of women and the births of human
beings ; — if thejr give this reply, let them find an answer to
the question concerning Vitumnus and Sentinus, whether tliey
are willing that these likewise should have dominion over all
things which live and feel. If they grant this, let them

1 Januam. ^ Vivijicator.. ^ Scnsificator.

2G2 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK YII.

observe in how sublime a position they are about to place
theuL For to spring from seeds is in the earth and of the
earth, but to live and feel are supposed to be properties even
of the sidereal gods. But if tliey say that only such things
as come to life in flesh, and are supported by senses, are
assigned to Sentinus, why does not that God who made all
things live and feel, bestow on flesh also life and sensation,
in the universality of His operation confening also on foetuses
this gift ? And wliat, then, is the use of Vitumnus and Sen-
tinus ? But if these, as it were, extreme and lowest things
have been committed by Him who presides universally over
life and sense to these gods as to servants, are these select
gods then so destitute of servants, that they could not find any
to wliom even they might commit those things, but with all
their dignity, for which they are, it seems, deemed worthy to
be selected, were compelled to perform their work along with
ignoble ones ? Juno is select queen of the gods, and the
sister and wife of Jupiter; nevertheless she is Iterduca, the
conductor, to boys, and performs this work along with a most
ignoble pair — the goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There they
have also placed the goddess Mena, who gives to boys a good
mind, and she is not placed among the select gods ; as if any-
thing greater could be bestowed on a man than a good mind.
But Juno is placed among the select because slie is Iter-
duca and Domiduca (she who conducts one on a journey, and
who conducts him home again); as if it is of any advantage
for one to make a journey, and to be conducted home again, if
his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows tliat
gift has not been placed by tlie selectors among the select
gods, though she ought indeed to have been preferred even to
Minerva, to whom, in tliis minute distribution of work, tliey
have allotted the memory of boys. For wlio will doubt that
it is a far better thing to liave a good mind, than ever so great
a memory ? For no one is bad wlio has a good mind ;^ but
some who are very bad are possessed ff an admirable memory,
and arc so much the worse, the less they are able to forget
the bad tilings which tliey think. And yet Minerva is among
the select gods, whilst the goddess ^Mena is hidden by a worth-

* As we say, "right-niindcJ."

LOOK VII.] SELECT GODS INCONSISTENTLY SELECTED. 263

less crowd. What shall I say concerning Virtus ? What con-
cerning Felicitas ? — concerning whom I have already spoken
much in the fourth book/ to whom, though they held them
to be goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place
among the select gods, among whom they have given a place
to Mars and Orcus, the one the causer of death, the other the
receiver of the dead.

Since, therefore, we see that even the select gods themselves
work together with the others, like a senate with the people,
in all those minute works which have been minutely portioned
out among many gods ; and since we find that far greater and
better things are administered by certain gods who have not
been reckoned worthy to be selected than by those w^ho are
called select, it remains that we suppose that they were called
select and chief, not on account of their holding more exalted
ofiices in the world, but because it happened to them to become
better known to the people. And even Varro himself says,
that in that way obscurity had fallen to the lot of some father
gods and mother goddesses,^ as it falls to the lot of men. If,
therefore, Felicity ought not perhaps to have been put among
the select gods, because they did not attain to that noble posi-
tion by merit, but by chance, Fortune at least should have been
placed among them, or rather before them ; for they say that
that goddess distributes to every one the gifts she receives,
not according to any rational arrangement, but according as
chance may determine. She ought to have held the uppermost
place among the select gods, for among them chiefly it is that
she shows what power she has. For we see that they have
been selected not on account of some eminent virtue or rational
happiness, but by that random power of Fortune w^hich the
worshippers of these gods think that she exerts. For that most
eloquent man Sallust also may perhaps have the gods them-
selves in view when he says : " But, in truth, fortune rules in
everything ; it renders all things famous or obscure, according
to caprice rather than according to truth." ^ For they cannot

' Ch. 21, 23.

^ The father Saturn, and the mother Ops, e.g., being more ohsciu'e than their
son Jupiter and daughter Juno.
3 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ch. 8.

264 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIL

discover a reason why Venus should have been made famous,
whilst Virtus has been made obscure, when the divinity ot both
of them has been solemnly recognised by tliem, and their merits
are not to be compared. Again, if she has deserved a noble
position on account of the fact tliat she is much sought after —
for there are more who seek after Venus than after Virtus —
why has Minerva been celebrated whilst Pecunia has been
left in obscurity, altliough throughout the whole human race
avarice allures a far greater number than skill ? And even
among those who are skilled in the arts, you will rarely find
a man who does not practise his own art for the purpose of
pecuniary gain ; and that for the sake of which anything is
made, is always valued more than that which is made for the
sake of something else. If, then, this selection of gods has
been made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why has
not the goddess Pecunia been preferred to Minerva, since there
are many artificers for the sake of money ? But if this dis-
tinction has been made by the few wise, why has Virtus been
preferred to Venus, when reason by far prefers the former ?
At all events, as I have already said, Fortune herself — who,
according to those who attribute most influence to her, renders
all things famous or obscure according to caprice rather than
according to the truth — since she has been able to exercise so
much power even over the gods, as, according to her capricious
judgment, to render those of them famous whom she would,
and those obscure whom she would ; Fortune herself ought to
occupy the place of pre-eminence among the select gods, since
over them also she has such pre-eminent power. Or must
we suppose that the reason why she is not among the select
is simply this, that even Fortune herself has had an adverse
fortune ? She was adverse, then, to herself, since, whilst en-
nobling others, she herself has remained obscure.

4. The inferior gods, whose names are not associated with infamy, have been better
dealt with than the select gods, whose ivfamies are celebrated.

However, any one who eagerly seeks for celebrity and re-
nown, might congratulate those select gods, and call them
fortunate, wore it not that he saw that they have been selected
more to their injury tlian to their honour. For that low
crowd of gods h:ne been protected by their very meanness

BOOK VII.] SELECT GODS THE MOST INFAMOUS. 265

and obscurity from being overwhelmed with infamy. We
laugh, indeed, when we see them distributed by the mere
fiction of human opinions, according to the special works
assigned to them, like those who farm small portions of the
public revenue, or like workmen in the street of the silver-
smiths,^ where one vessel, in order that it may go out perfect,
passes through the hands of many, when it might have been
finished by one perfect worlonan. But the only reason why
the combined skill of many workmen was thought necessary,
was, that it is better that each part of an art should be learned
by a special workman, which can be done speedily and easily,
than that they should all be compelled to be perfect in one
art throughout all its parts, which they could only attain
slowly and with difficulty. ISTevertheless there is scarcely to
be found one of the non-select gods who has brought infamy
on himself by any crime, whilst there is scarce any one of the
select gods who has not received upon himself the brand of
notable infamy. These latter have descended to the humble
works of the others, whilst the others have not come up to
their sublime crimes. Concerning Janus, there does not
readily occur to my recollection anything infamous ; and
perhaps he was such an one as lived more innocently than
the rest, and further removed irom misdeeds and crimes. He
kindly received and entertained Saturn when he was fleeing ;
he divided his kingdom with his guest, so that each of them
had a city for himself,^ — the one Janiculum, and the other
Saturnia. But those seekers after every kind of unseemliness
in the worship of the gods have disgraced him, whose life they
found to be less disgraceful than that of the other gods, with an
image of monstrous deformity, making it sometimes with two
faces, and sometimes, as it were, double, with four faces.^ Did
they wish that, as the most of the select gods had lost shame*
through the perpetration of shameful crimes, his greater inno-
cence should be marked by a greater number of faces ?^

^ Vicus argentarius. ^ Virgil, ^neid, viii. 357, 358.

2 Quadrifrons. 4 Frons.

s " Quanto iste innocentior esset, tanto frontosior appareret ;" being used for
tlie shamelessness of innocence, as we use "face" for the shamelessness of im-
pudence.

2G6 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII,

5. Concerning the more secret doctrine of tlie pagans, and concerning the
physical interpretations.

But let US hear their own pliysical interpretations by wliich
tliey attempt to colour, as with the appearance of profounder
doctrine, the baseness of most miserable error. Yarro, in the
first place, commends these interpretations so strongly as to say,
that the ancients invented tlie images, badges, and adornments
of the gods, in order that when those who went to the mysteries
should see them with their bodily eyes, they might with the eyes
of their mind see the soul of the w^orld, and its parts, that is,
the true gods ; and also that the meaning which was intended
by those who made their images wdth the human form, seemed
to be this, — namely, that the mind of mortals, wliich is in a
human body, is very like to the immortal mind,^ just as vessels
might be placed to represent the gods, as, for instance, a wine-
vessel might be placed in tlie temple of Liber, to signify wine,
that which is contained being signified by that which contains.
Thus by an image which had the human form the rational
soul was signified, because the human form is the vessel, as it
were, in w^hich that nature is wont to be contained which they
attribute to God, or to the gods. These are the mysteries of
doctrine to which that most learned man penetrated in order
that he might bring them forth to the light. But, 0 thou
most acute man, hast thou lost among those mysteries that
prudence which led thee to form the sober opinion, that those
who first established those images for the people took away
fear from the citizens and added error, and that the ancient
Eomans honoured the gods more chastely without images ?
For it was through consideration of them that thou wast
emboldened to speak these things against the later Bomans.
For if those most ancient Romans also had worshipped images,
perhaps thou wouldst have suppressed by the silence of fear
all tliose sentiments (true sentiments, nevertheless) concerning
the folly of setting up images, and wouldst have extolled more
loftily, and more loquaciously, those mysterious doctrines con-
sisting of tliese vain and pernicious fictions. Thy soul, so
learned and so clever (and for this I grieve much for thee),
could never through these mysteries have reached its God ; that

1 Cicero, Tusc. Qucest. v. 13.

BOOK VIL] VARRO'S INTERPRETATIONS. 267

is, the God by whom, not with whom, it was made, of whom
it is not a part, but a work, — that God who is not the soul of
all things, but who made every soul, and in whose light alone
every soul is blessed, if it be not ungrateful for His grace.

But the things which follow in this book will show what is
the nature of these mysteries, and what value is to be set upon
them. Meanwhile, this most learned man confesses as his
opinion that the soul of the world and its parts are the true
gods, from which we perceive that his theology (to wit, that
same natural theology to which he pays great regard) has been
able, in its completeness, to extend itself even to the nature
of the rational soul. For in this book (concerning the select
gods) he says a very few things by anticipation concerning
the natural theology ; and we shall see whether he has been
able in that book, by means of physical interpretations, to
refer to this natural theology that civil theology, concerning
which he wTote last when treating of the select gods. Now,
if he has been able to do this, the whole is natural; and
in that case, what need was there for distincjuishinfTj so care-
fully the civil from the natural ? But if it has been dis-
tinguished by a veritable distinction, then, since not eyen this
natural theology with which he is so much pleased is true (for '
though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached to
the true God who made the soul), how much more contempti-
ble and false is that civil theology which is chiefly occupied
about what is corporeal, as will be shown by its very interpre-
tations, which they have with such diligence sought out and
enucleated, some of which I must necessarily mention !

6. Concerning the opinion of Varro, that God is the soul of the world, which
nevertheless, in its various parts, has many souls whose nature is divine.

The same Varro, then, still speaking by anticipation, says
that he thinks that God is the soul of the world (which the
Greeks call Koa/jLo^), and that this world itself is God ; but as
a wise man, though he consists of body and mind, is neverthe-
less called wise on account of his mind, so the w^orld is called
God on account of mind, although it consists of mind and
body. Here he seems, in some fashion at least, to aclmowledge
one God ; but that he may introduce more, he adds that the
world is divided into two parts, heaven and earth, wliich are

268 THE CITY OF GOD. '[BOOK VII.

again divided each into two parts, heaven into ether and air,
earth into water and land, of all wliich tlie ether is the highest,
the air second, the water third, and the earth the lowest. All
these four parts, he says, are full of souls ; those which are in
the ether and air being immortal, and those which are in the
water and on tlie earth mortal. From the highest part of the
heavens to tlie orbit of the moon there are souls, namely, the
stars and planets ; and tliese are not only understood to be
gods, but are seen to be such. And between the orbit of the
moon and the commencement of the region of clouds and winds
there are aerial souls ; but these are seen with the mind, not
with the eyes, and are called Heroes, and Lares, and Genii.
This is the natural theology which is briefly set forth in these
anticipatory statements, and which satisfied not Varro only, but
many philosophers besides. This I must discuss more care-
fully, when, with the help of God, I shall have completed what
I have yet to say concerning the civil theology, as far as it
concerns the select gods.

7. Whether it is reasonable to separate Janus and Terminus as
two distinct deities.

Who, then, is Janus, with whom Yarro commences ? He
is the world. Certainly a very brief and unambiguous reply.
Why, then, do they say that the beginnings of things pertain
to him, but the ends to another whom they call Terminus ?
For they say that two months have been dedicated to these
two gods, with reference to beginnings and ends — January to
Janus, and February to Terminus — over and al)ove those ten
months which commence with March and end with December.
And they say that that is the reason why the Terminalia
are celebrated in the month of February, the same month
in which the sacred purification is made which they call
Febnium, and from which the month derives its name.^
Do the boc^Munings of things, therefore, pertain to the world,
which is Janus, and not also the ends, since another god

^ An inton'stinpj aroount of the changes made in the Roman year by Xuma is
given in Plutnrcli's life of that king. Ovid also {Fajiti, ii.) explains tlie deri-
vation of February, telling us that it was the h\si month of the old year, and
took its name from the lustrations performed then : *' Februa liomuiii dixere
piamina patrcs."

BOOK VII.] JANUS AND TERMINUS. 269

has been placed over them ? Do they not own that all
things which they say begin in this w^oiid also come to an end
in this world ? What folly it is, to give him only haK power
in w^ork, wdien in his image they give him two faces ! Would
it not be a far more elegant way of interpreting the two-faced
image, to say that Janus and Terminus are the same, and that
the one face has reference to beginnings, the other to ends ?
For one who works ought to have respect to both. For he
who in every forthputting of activity does not look back on
the beginning, does not look forw^ard to the end. Wherefore
it is necessary that prospective intention be connected with
retrospective memory. For how shall one find how to finish
anything, if he has forgotten w^hat it was which he had begun ?
But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this
world, and perfected beyond the world, and for that reason
attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power of
beginnings, they should certainly have preferred Terminus to
him, and should not have shut him out from the number of
the select gods. Yet even now, when the beginnings and ends
of temporal things are represented by these two gods, more
honour ought to have been given to Terminus. For the greater
joy is tliat wdiich is felt wdien anything is finished ; but things
begun are always cause of much anxiety until they are brought
to an end, which end he wdio begins anything very greatly
longs for, fixes his mind on, expects, desires ; nor does any one
ever rejoice over anything he has begun, unless it be brought
to an end.

8. For what reason the worshippers of Janus have made his image with tioo
faces, when they would sometimes have it he seen with four.

But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be

produced. For they say that it has two faces, one before and

one behind, because our gaping mouths seem to resemble the

world : whence the Greeks call the palate ovpavo^, and some

Latin poets,^ he says, have called the heavens palatum [the

palate] ; and from the gaping mouth, they say, there is a w^ay

out in the direction of the teeth, and a way in in the direction

of the gullet. See what the world has been brought to on

account of a Greek or a poetical w^ord for our palate ! Let

^ Eimius, in Cicero, De Nat. Bear. ii. 18.

270 THE CITY OF COD. [book vii.

this god be worshipped only on account of saliva, which has
two open doorways under the heavens of the palate, — one
through which part of it may be spitten out, tlie other through
which part of it may be swallowed down. Besides, what is
more absurd than not to find in tlie world itseK two doorways
opposite to each other, tln-ougli which it may either receive
anything into itself, or cast it out from itself; and to seek of
our throat and gullet, to wliich the world has no resemblance,
to make up an image of the world in Janus, because the world
is said to resemble the ^palate, to wliich Janus bears no like-
ness ? But when they make him four-faced, and call him
double Janus, they interpret this as having reference to the
four quarters of the world, as though the world looked out on
anything, like Janus through his four faces. Again, if Janus
is the world, and the world consists of four quarters, then the
image of the two-faced Janus is false. Or if it is true, because
the whole world is sometimes understood by the expression east
and west, will any one call the world double when north and
south also are mentioned, as they call Janus double \\\\q\\ he
has four faces ? They have no way at all of interpreting, in
relation to the world, four doorways by which to go in and to
come out as they did in the case of the two-faced Janus, where
they found, at any rate in the human mouth, something
wliich answered to what they said about him ; unless perhaps
Neptune come to their aid, and hand them a lish, which,
besides the mouth and gullet, has also the openings of the
gills, one on each side. Nevertheless, with all the doors, no
soul escapes this vanity but that one which hears the truth
saying, " I am the door."^

9. Concerning the poicer of Jupiter^ and a comparison of Jupiter with Janus.

But they also show whom they would have Jove (who is

also called Jupiter) understood to be. He is the god, say

. they, who has the power of the causes by which anything

comes tio be in the world. And how great a thing this is,

that most noble verse of Virgil testifies :

" Happy is he who has learned the causes of things." *
* John X. 9. ' Gcovjic, ii. 470.

BOOK VII.] JUPITER AND JANUS. 271

But why is Janus preferred to him ? Let that most acute
and most learned man answer us this question. " Because,"
says he, " Janus has dominion over first things, Jupiter over
highest^ things. Therefore Jupiter is deservedly held to be
the king of all things ; for highest things are better than first
things: for although first things precede in time, highest
things excel by dignity."

Now this would have been rightly said had the first parts
of things which are done been distinguished from the highest
parts ; as, for instance, it is the beginning of a thing done to
set out, the highest part to arrive. The commencing to learn
is the first part of a thing begun, the acquirement of know-
ledge is the highest part. And so of all things : the begin-
nings are first, the ends highest. This matter, however, has
been already discussed in connection vdth Janus and Terminus.
But the causes which are attributed to Jupiter are things effect-
ing, not things effected ; and it is impossible for them to be
prevented in- time by things which are made or done, or by
the beginnings of such things ; for the thing which makes is
always prior to the thing which is made. Therefore, though
the beginnings of things which are made or done pertain to
Janus, they are nevertheless not prior to the efficient causes
which they attribute to Jupiter. For as nothing takes place
without being preceded by an efficient cause, so without an
efficient cause nothing begins to take place. Verily, if the
people call this god Jupiter, in whose power are all the causes
of all natures which have been made, and of all natural things,
and worship him with such insults and infamous criminations,
they are guilty of more shocking sacrilege than if they should
totally deny the existence of any god. It would therefore
be better for them to call some other god by the name of
Jupiter — some one worthy of base and criminal honours ;
substituting instead of Jupiter some vain fiction (as Saturn is
said to have had a stone given to him to devour instead of hi^s
son), which they might make the subject of their blasphemies,
rather than speak of that god as both thundering and commit-
ting adultery, — ruling the whole world, and laying himself out
for the commission of so many licentious acts, — having in his

^ Summa, which also includes the meanincr "last."

272 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK TIL

power nature and the highest causes of all natural things, but
not having his own causes good.

Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter
among the gods, if Janus is the world ; lor Varro defined the
true gods to be the soul of the world, and the parts of it. And
therefore whatever falls not within this definition, is certainly
not a true god, according to them. Will they then say that
Jupiter is the soul of the world, and Janus the body — that is,
this visible world ? If they say this, it will not be possible
for them to affirm that Janus is a god. For even, according
to them, the body of the world is not a god, but the soul of
the world and its parts. Wlierefore Varro, seeing this, says
that he thinks God is the soul of the world, and that this
world itself is God ; but that as a wise man, though he con-
sists of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the
soul, so the world is called God from the soul, though it
consists of soul and body. Therefore the body of the world
alone is not God, but either the soul of it alone, or the soul
and the body together, yet so as that it is God not by virtue
of the body, but by virtue of the soul. If, therefore, Janus
is the world, and Janus is a god, will they say, in order that
Jupiter may be a god, that he is some part of Janus ? For
they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to
Jupiter; whence the saying, "All things are full of Jupiter."^
Therefore they must think Jupiter also, in order that he may
be a god, and especially king of the gods, to be the world, that
he may rule over the other gods — according to them, his parts.
To tliis effect, also, the same Varro expounds certain verses
of Valerius Soranus "^ in that book which he wrote apart from
the others concerning the worship of the gods. These are the
verses :

"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,
And eke the mother of the gods, god one and all."

But in the same book he expounds these verses by sapng that
as the male emits seed, and the female receives it, so Jupiter,
whom they believed to be the world, both emits all seeds from

^ Virgil, Eclofj. iiL 60, who borrows the expression from the Pluxnomena of
Aratus.

' Soranus lived about B.C. 100, See Smith's Diet.

BOOK VII.] JANUS AND JUPITER. 273

himself and receives them into himself. For which reason, he
says, Soranus wrote, " Jove, progenitor and mother ;" and with
no less reason said that one and all were the same. For the
world is one, and in that one are all things.

10. Whether the distinction between Janus and Jupiter is a proper one.

Since, therefore, Janus is the world, and Jupiter is the world,
wherefore are Janus and Jupiter two gods, while the world is
but one ? AVliy do they have separate temples, separate altars,
different rites, dissimilar images ? If it be because the nature
of becfinninE^s is one, and the nature of causes another, and the
one has received the name of Janus, the other of JujDiter ; is
it then the case, that if one man has two distinct offices of
authority, or two arts, two judges or two artificers are spoken
of, because the nature of the offices or the arts is different ?
So also with respect to one god : if he have the power of
beginnings and of causes, must he therefore be thought to be
two cjods, because beoinninG;s and causes are two thinf^s ? But
it they think that this is right, let them also affirm that Jupiter
is as many gods as they have given him surnames, on account
of many powers ; for the things from which these surnames
are applied to him are many and diverse. I shall mention a
few of them.

11. Concerning the surnames oj" Jupiter, ichich are j-ef erred not to many gods,
hut to one and the same god.

They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor,
Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Euminus, and
other names Avhich it were long to enumerate. But these
surnames they have given to one god on account of diverse
causes and powers, but yet have not compelled him to be, on
account of so many things, as many gods. They gave him
these surnames because he conquered all things ; because he
was conquered by none ; because he brought help to the needy;
because he had the power of impelling, stopping, stablishing,
tlirowing on the back ; because as a beam ^ he held together
and sustained the world ; because he nourished all tinners ;
because, like the pap,-' he nourished animals. Here, we per-
ceive, are some great things and some small things ; and yet

J Tigillus. 2 Pvuma.

VOL. I. S

274 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

it is one who is said to perform them all. 1 think that the
causes and the beginnings of things, on account of which they
have tliought that tlie one "svorld is two gods, Jupiter and
Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of
the world, and the giving of the pap to animals ; and yet, on
account of these two works so far apart from each otlier, botli
in nature and dignity, there has not bCen any necessity for
the existence of two gods ; but one Jupiter has been called,
on account of the one Tigillus, on account of the other
Euminus. I am unwilling to say that the giving of the pap
to sucking animals might have become Juno rather than
Jupiter, especially when there was the goddess Itumina to
help and to serve her in this work ; for I think it may be
replied that Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter, accord-
ing to those verses of Valerius Soranus, where it has been
said :

"Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,
And eke the mother of the gods," etc.

Wliy, then, was he called Euminus, when they who may per-
chance inquire more diligently may find that he is also that
goddess Eumina ?

If, then, it w\as rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of
the gods, that in one ear of corn one god should have the care
of the joint, another that of the husk, how much more un-
worthy of that majesty is it, that one thing, and that of the
lowest kind, even the giving of the pap to animals that they
may be nourished, should be under the care of two gods, one
of whom is Jupiter himself, the very king of all things, who
does this not along with his own wife, but with some ignoble
Rumina (unless perhaps he himself is Eumina, being Euminus
for males and raimina for females) ! I should certainly have
said that they had been unwilling to apply to Jupiter a
feminine name, had he not been styled in these verses "pro-
genitor and mother," and had I not read among other sur-
names of his tliut of Pecunia [money], which we found as a
goddess among tliosc petty deities, as I have already mentioned
in the fourth book. But since both males and females have
money [jKcufiiam], wliy lias he not been called both Pecunius
and Pecunia ? That is their concern.

BOOK Yll.] JUPITER AND PECUNIA. 275

12. That Jupiter is also called Pecunia.

How elegantly they have accounted for this name ! " He
is also called Pecunia," say they, " because all things belong
to him." Oh how grand an explanation of the name of a
deity ! Yes ; he to whom all things belong is most meanly
and most contumeliously called Pecunia. In comparison of all
things which are contained by heaven and earth, what are all
things together which are possessed by men under the name
of money ? ^ And this name, forsooth, hath avarice given to
Jupiter, that whoever was a lover of money might seem to
himself to love not an ordinary god, but tlie very king of all
things himself. But it would be a far different thing if he had
been called Eiches. For riches are one thing, money another.
For we call rich the wise, the just, the good, w^ho have either
no money or very little. For they are more truly rich in
possessing virtue, since by it, even as respects things necessary
for the body, they are content with what they have. But we
call the greedy poor, who are always craving and always want-
ing. For they may possess ever so great an amount of money ;
but whatever be the abundance of that, they are not able
but to want. And we properly call God HimseK rich ; not,
however, in money, but in omnipotence. Therefore they who
have abundance of money are called rich, but inwardly needy
if they are greedy. So also, those who have no money are
called poor, but inwardly rich if they are wise.

What, then, ought the wise man to think of this theology,
in which the king of the gods receives the name of that thing
" which no wise man has desired ? "^ For had there been any-
thing wholesomely taught by this philosophy concerning eternal
life, how much more appropriately would that god who is the
ruler of the world have been called by them, not money, but
wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of avarice, that
is, of the love of money !

13. That when it is expounded what Saturn is, what Genius is, it comes to
this, that both of them are shown to be Jupiter.

But why speak more of this Jupiter, with whom perchance

^ "Pecunia," that is, property; the original meaning of "pecunia" being
property in cattle, then property or wealth of any kind. Comp. Augustine,
De discipl Christ. 6. 2 Sallust, Caiil. c. 11.

276 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

all the rest arc to be identified ; so that, he Leing all, the
opinion as to the existence of many gods may remain as a
mere opinion, empty of all trutli ? And they are all to be
referred to him, if liis various parts and powers are thought
of as so many gods, or if tlie principle of mind wliich they
think to be diffused throu'di all thiuc^s has received the names
of many gods from the various parts which the mass ot this
visible world combines in itself, and from tlie manifold admi-
nistration of nature. For what is Saturn also ? " One of the
principal gods," he says, " who lias dominion over all sowings."
Does not the exposition of the verses of Valerius Soranus
teach that Jupiter is the world, and that he emits all seeds
from himself, and receives them into himself ?

It is he, then, with whom is tlie dominion of all sowings.
What is Genius ? " He is the god who is set over, and has
tlie power of begetting, all things." Who else than the world
do they believe to have this power, to wliich it has been said :

"Almighty Jove, progenitor and mother?"

And when in another place he says that Genius is the
rational soul of every one, and therefore exists separately in
each individual, but that the corresponding soul of the world
is God, he just comes back to this same thing, — namely, that
the soul of the world itself is to be held to be, as it were, the
universal genius. This, therefore, is what he calls Jupiter.
For if every genius is a god, and the soul of every man a
genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a god. But if
very absurdity compels even these theologists themselves to
shrink from this, it remains that they call that genius god by
special and pre-eminent distinction, whom tlioy call the soul
of the world, and therefore Jupiter.

1 1. Concerning the offices of Mercury and Mars.

liut they have not found how to refer Mercury and Mai*s
to any parts of the world, and to the works of God which are
in the elements ; and therefore they have set them at least
over human works, making them assistants in speaking and in
raiTying on wars. Now ^fcrcurv, if he has also the power of
the speech of the gods, rules also over the king of the gods him-

BOOK VII.] JUPITER AND MERCURY. 277

self, if Jupiter, as he receives from him the faculty of speech,
also speaks according as it is his pleasure to permit him —
which surely is absurd ; but if it is only the power over human
speech which is held to be attributed to him, then we say
it is incredible that Jupiter should have condescended to give
the pap not only to children, but also to beasts — from which
he has been surnamed Euminus — and yet should have been
unwilling that the care of our speech, by which we excel the
beasts, should pertain to him. And thus speech itself both
belongs to Jupiter, and is Mercury. But if speech itself is
said to be Mercury, as those things which are said concerning
him by way of interpretation show it to be ; — for he is said
to have been called Mercury, that is, he who runs between,^
because speech runs between men : they say also that the
Greeks call him 'Ep[xrj<;, because speech, or interpretation, which
certainly belongs to speech, is called by them ep/uLrjveia : also
he is said to preside over payments, because speech passes
between sellers and buyers : the wings, too, which he has on
his head and on his feet, they say, mean that speech passes
winged through the air : he is also said to have been called
the messenger,^ because by means of speech all our thoughts
are expressed ;^ — if, therefore, speech itself is Mercury, then,
even by their own confession, he is not a god. But when
they make to themselves gods of such as are not even demons,
by praying to unclean spirits, they are possessed by such as
are not gods, but demons. In like manner, because they have
not been able to find for IVIars any element or part of the
world in which he might perform some works of nature of
whatever kind, they have said that he is the god of war,
which is a work of men, and that not one which is considered
desirable by them. If, therefore, Felicitas should give per-
petual peace. Mars would have nothing to do. But if war
itself is ISIars, as speech is Mercury, I wish it were as true
tliat there were no war to be falsely called a god, as it is true
that it is not a god.

15. Concerning certain stars tohich the pagans have called hy the names
of their gods.

But possibly these stars which have been called by their

^ Quasi medius currens. ' Nuncius. ' Enunciantur.

278 THE CITY OF GOD. [cOOK VLl.

names are these gods. For they call a certain star Meicur}%
and likewise a certain other star Mars. But among those
stars wliich are called by the names of gods, is that one which
they call Jupiter, and yet witli them Jupiter is the world.
There also is that one they call Saturn, and yet they give to
him no small property besides, — namely, all seeds. There also
is that brightest of them all which is called by them Venus,
and yet they will have this same Venus to be also the moon :
— not to mention how Venus and Juno are said by them to
contend about that most brilliant star, as though about another
golden apple. For some say that Lucifer belongs to Venus, and
some to Juno. But, as usual, Venus conquers. For by far the
greatest number assign that star to Venus, so much so that
there is scarcely found one of them who thinks otherwise.
But since they call Jupiter the king of all, who will not laugh to
see his star so far surpassed in brilliancy by the star of Venus ?
For it ought to have been as much more brilliant than the
rest, as he himself is more powerful. They answer that it
only appears so because it is higher up, and very much farther
aw^ay from the earth. If, therefore, its greater dignity has
deserved a higher place, why is Saturn higher in the heavens
than Jupiter ? Was the vanity of the fable which made
Jupiter king not able to reach the stars ? And has Saturn
been permitted to obtain at least in the heavens, what he
could not obtain in his own kingdom nor in the Capitol ?

But why has Janus received no star ? If it is because he
is the world, and they are all in him, the world is also
Jupiter's, and yet he has one. Did Janus compromise liis case
as best he could, and instead of the one star which he does
not have among the heavenly bodies, accept so many fiices
on earth ? Again, if they think tliat on account of the stars
alone Mercury and Mars are parts of the world, in order that
tlicy may be able to liave them for gods, since speech and
war are not parts of the world, but acts of men, how is it
that they have made no altars, established no rites, built
no temples for Aries, and Taurus, and Cancer, and Scorpio,
and tlie rest which they number as the celestial signs, and
which consist not of single stars, but each of them of many
stars, which also they say are situated above those already

BOOK VII.] JUPITER AND APOLLO. 279

mentioned in the highest part of the heavens, where a more
constant motion causes the stars to follow an nndeviating
course ? And why have they not reckoned them as gods, I
do not say among those select gods, but not even among
those, as it were, plebeian gods ?

16. Concerning Apollo and Diana, and the other select gods icJiom they would
have to be parts of the world.

Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and
physician, they have nevertheless given him a place as some
part of the world. They have said that he is also the sun ;
and likewise they have said that Diana, his sister, is the
moon, and the guardian of roads. Whence also they will
have her be a virgin, because a road brings forth nothing.
They also make both of them have arrows, because those
two planets send their rays from the heavens to the earth.
They make Vulcan to be the fire of the world ; Neptune the
waters of the world ; Father Dis, that is, Orcus, the earthy
and lowest part of the world. Liber and Ceres they set over
seeds, — the former over the seeds of males, the latter over
the seeds of females ; or the one over the fluid part of seed,
but the other over the dry part. And all this together is
referred to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who is called " pro-
genitor and mother," because he emitted all seeds from him-
self, and received them into himself For they also make
this same Ceres to be the Great Mother, who they say is
none other than the earth, and call her also Juno. And
therefore they assign to her the second causes of things,
notwithstanding that it has been said to Jupiter, " progenitor
and mother of the gods;" because, according to them, the
whole world itself is Jupiter's. Minerva, also, because they
set her over human arts, and did not find even a star in
which to place her, has been said by them to be either the
highest sether, or even the moon. Also Vesta herself they
have thought to be the highest of the goddesses, because she
is the earth ; although they have thought that the milder
fire of the world, which is used for the ordinary purposes
of human life, not the more violent fire, such as belongs to
Vulcan, is to be assigned to her. And thus they will have
all those select gods to be the world and its parts, — some of

280 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

them the whole world, others of them its parts ; the whole
of it Jiii)itor, — its parts, Genius, Mater Magna, Sol and Luna,
or rather Apollo and Diana, and so on. And sometimes they
make one god many things ; sometimes one thing many gods.
Many things are one god in the case of Jupiter ; for both the
whole world is Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and the
star alone is said and held to he Jupiter. Juno also is mis-
tress of second causes, — Juno is the air, Juno is the earth ;
and had she won it over Venus, Juno would have been the
star. Likewise Minerva is the highest aether, and Minerva
is likewise the moon, which they suppose to be in the lowest
limit of the aether. And also they make one thing many
gods in this way. The world is both Janus and Jupiter ;
also the earth is Juno, and Mater Magna, and Ceres.

17. That even Varro himself pronounced his oicii opinions regarding tlie gods

ambiguous.

And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true
with respect to those things which I have mentioned for the
sake of example. They do not explain them, but rather
involve them. They rush hither and tliither, to this side or
to that, according as they are driven by the impulse of erratic
opinion; so that even Varro himself has chosen rather to
doubt concerning all things, than to affirm anything. ' For,
havinir written the first of the three last books conccrninir
the certain gods, and having commenced in the second of
these to speak of the uncertain gods, he says : " I ought not
to be censured for having stated in this book the doubtful
opinions concerning the gods. For he who, when he has
read them, sliall tliink that they botli ought to be, and can be,
conclusively judged of, will do so himself. For my own part,
I can be more easily led to doubt the things whicli I have
written in the first book, than to attempt to reduce all the
things I shall write in this one to any orderly system." Thus
he makes uncertain not only that book concerning tlie un-
certain gods, but also that other concerning the certain gods.
Moreover, in tliat third book concerning the select gods, after
having exhibited by anticipation as much of the natural theo-
logy as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence

BOOK VII.] VARRO'S UNCERTAINTY. 281

to speak of the vanities and lying insanities of the civil
theology, where he was not only without the guidance of the
truth of things, but was also pressed by the authority of
tradition, he says : " I will write in this book concerning the
public gods of the Eoman people, to whom they have dedi-
cated temples, and whom they have conspicuously distin-
guished by many adornments ; but, as Xenophon of Colophon
writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared
to maintain : it is for man to think those things, for God to
know them."

It is not, then, an account of things comprehended and
most certainly believed which he promised, when about to
write those things which were instituted by men. He only
timidly promises an account of things which are but the
subject of doubtful opinion. Nor, indeed, was it possible for
him to affirm with the same certainty that Janus was the
world, and such like things ; or to discover with the same
certainty such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn,
while Saturn was made subject to him as king : — he could,
I say, neither affirm nor discover such things with the
same certainty with which he knew such things as that the
world existed, that the heavens and earth existed, the heavens
bright with stars, and the earth fertile through seeds ; or with
the same perfect conviction with which he believed that this
universal mass of nature is governed and administered by a
certain invisible and mighty force.

18. A more credible cause of the rise of pagan error.

A far more credible account of these gods is given, when it
it said that they were men, and that to each one of them
sacred rites and solemnities were instituted, according to his
particular genius, manners, actions, circumstances; which
rites and solemnities, by gradually creeping through the souls
of men, which are like demons, and eager for things which
yield them sport, were spread far and wide ; the poets adorn-
ing them with lies, and false spirits seducing men to receive
them. For it is far more likely that some youth, either im-
pious himself, or afraid of being slain by an impious father,
being desirous to reign, dethroned his father, than that (ac-

282 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

cording to A'ai-n/s interpretation) Saturn was overthrown by
his son Jupiter ; for cause, wliich belongs to Jupiter, is before
seed, which belongs to Saturn. For had this been so, Saturn
would never have been before Jupiter, nor would he have
been the father of Jupiter. Tor cause always precedes seed;
and is never generated from seed. But when they seek to
honour by natural interpretation most vain fables or deeds
of men, even the acutest men are so perplexed that we are
compelled to grieve for their folly also.

19. Conccrnimj the interpretations which compose the reason of the icorship
of Saturn.

They said, says Varro, that Saturn was wont to devour all
that sprang from him, because seeds returned to the earth
from whence they sprang. And when it is said that a lump
of earth was put before Saturn to be devoured instead of
Jupiter, it is signified, he says, that before the art of plough-
ing was discovered, seeds were buried in the earth by the
hands of men. The earth itself, then, and not seeds, should
have been called Saturn, because it in a manner devours what
it has brought forth, when the seeds which have sprung from
it return again into it. And what has Saturn's receiving of
a lump of earth instead of Jupiter to do with this, that the
seeds were covered in the soil by the hands of men ? "Was
the seed kept from being devoured, like other things, by being
covered with the soil ? For what they say would imply that
he who put on the soil took away the seed, as Jupiter is said
to have been taken away when the lump of soil was offered
to Saturn instead of him, and not rather that the soil, by
covering the seed, only caused it to be devoured the more
eagerly. Then, in that way, Jupiter is the seed, and not the
cause of tlie seed, as was said a little before.

But wliat sliall men do who cannot find anything wise to
say, because tlioy are interpreting foolish things ? Saturn
has a pruning-knife. Tliat, says Varro, is on account of
agriculture. Certainly in Saturn's reign there as yet existed
no agriculture, and therefore the former times of Saturn are
spoken of, because, as the same VaiTO interprets the fables,
the primeval men lived on those seeds whicli the earth pro-
duced spontaneously. Perhaps he received a pruning-knife

BOOK VII.] ELEUSINIAN RITES. 283

when lie had lost his sceptre ; that he who had been a king,
and lived at ease during the first part of his time, should
become a laborious workman whilst his son occupied the
throne. Then he says that boys were wont to be immolated
to him by certain peoples, the Carthaginians for instance ;
and also that adults were immolated by some nations, for
example the Gauls — because, of all seeds, the human race
is the best. What need we say more concerning this most
cruel vanity ? Let us rather attend to and hold by this, that
these interpretations are not carried up to the true God, — a
living, incorporeal, unchangeable nature, from whom a blessed
life enduring for ever may be obtained, — but that they end
in things which are corporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal.
And whereas it is said in the fables that Saturn castrated
his father Coelus, this signifies, says Varro, that the divine
seed belongs to Saturn, and not .to Coelus ; for this reason,
as far as a reason can be discovered, namely, that in heaven^
nothing is born from seed. But, lo ! Saturn, if he is the son
of Coelus, is the son of Jupiter. For they affirm times with-
out number, and that emphatically, that the heavens^ are
Jupiter. Thus those things which come not of the truth, do
very often, without being impelled by any one, themselves
overthrow one another. He says that Saturn was called
Kpovo^, which in the Greek tongue signifies a space of time,^
because, without that, seed cannot be productive. These and
many other things are said concerning Saturn, and they are
all referred to seed. But Saturn surely, with all that great
power, might have sufficed for seed. Why are other gods
demanded for it, especially Liber and Libera, that is, Ceres ?
— concerning whom again, as far as seed is concerned, he
says as many things as if he had said nothing concerning
Saturn.

20. Concerning the rites of Eleuslnian Ceres.

Now among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian rites are
much famed which were in the highest repute among the
Athenians, of which Varro offers no interpretation except
with respect to corn, which Ceres discovered, and with respect
to Proserpine, whom Ceres lost, Orcus having carried her

1 Coelo. ' Cceluni. ^ gc. Xf'om.

284 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

away. And this Proserpine herself, he says, signifies the
fecundity of seeds. But as this fecundity departed at a
certain season, ^vllilst the earth wore an aspect of sorrow
through the consequent sterility, there arose an opinion that
the daughter of Ceres, that is, fecundity itself, who was called
Proserpine, from proserjKre (to creep forth, to spring), had
been carried away by Orcus, and detained among the inhabit-
ants of the nether world ; which circumstance was celebrated
with public mourning. But since the same fecundity again
returned, there arose joy because Proserpine had been given
l)ack by Orcus, and thus these rites were instituted. Then
Varro adds, that many things are taught in the mysteries of
Ceres which only refer to the discovery of fruits.

21. Concerning the shame/ulness of the rites which are celebrated in honour

of Liher.

Xow as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over
liquid seeds, and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits,
among which wine holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also
over the seeds of animals : — as to these rites, I am unwilling
to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had
reached, because that would entail a lengthened discourse,
though I am not unwilling to do so as a demonstration of the
proud stupidity of those who practise them. Among other
rites which I am compelled from the greatness of their number
to omit, Varro says that in Italy, at the places where roads
crossed each other, the rites of Liber were celebrated with
such unrestrained turpitude, that the private parts of a man
were worshipped in liis honour. Kor was this abomination
transacted in secret, that some regard at least might be paid
to modesty, but was openly and wantonly displayed. For
during the festival of Liber, this obscene member, placed on
a car, was carried with great honour, first over the cross-roads
in the country, and then into the city. But in the town of
Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, durincr
the days of wliich all the people gave themselves up to the
most dissolute conversation, until that member had been
carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own
place; on which unseemly member it was necessary that

BOOK VII.] NEPTUNE, SALACIA, AND VENILIA. 285

the most honourable matron should place a wreath in the
presence oi all the people. Thus, forsooth, was the god Liber
to be appeased in order to the growth of seeds. Thus was
enchantment to be driven away from fields, even by a matron's
being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought
to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons
among the spectators. For these reasons, then, Saturn alone
was not believed to be sufficient for seeds, — namely, that the
impure mind might find occasions for multi^olying the gods;
and that, being righteously abandoned to uncleanness by the
one true God, and being prostituted to the worship of many
false gods, through an avidity for ever greater and greater
uncleanness, it should call these sacrilegious rites sacred
things, and should abandon itself to be violated and polluted
by crowds of foul demons.

22. Concerning Neptune, and Salacia, and Venilia.

Xow Neptune had Salacia to wife, who they say is the
nether waters of the sea. Wherefore was Venilia also joined
to him ? Was it not simply through the lust of the soul
desiring a greater number of demons to whom to prostitute
itself, and not because this goddess was necessary to the per-
fection of their sacred rites? But let the interpretation of this
illustrious theology be brought forward to restrain us from
this censuring by rendering a satisfactory reason. Venilia,
says this theology, is the wave which comes to the shore,
Salacia the wave which returns into the sea. Why, then, are
there two goddesses, when it is one wave which comes and
returns ? Certainly it is mad lust itself, which in its eager-
ness for many deities resembles the waves which break on the
sliore. For thoucfh the water which f^oes is not different from
that which returns, still the soul which goes and returns not
is defiled by two demons, whom it has taken occasion by this
false pretext to invite. I ask thee, 0 Varro, and you who
have read such works of learned men, and think ye have
learned something great, — I ask you to interpret this, I do not
say in a manner consistent with the eternal and unchangeable
nature which alone is God, but only in a manner consistent
with the doctrine concerning the soul of the world and its

28G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIL

parts, which ye think to be the true gods. It is a somewhat
more tolerable thing that ye have made that part of the soul
of the world whicli pervades the sea your god Xeptune. Is
the wave, then, which comes to the shore and returns to the
main, two parts of the world, or two parts of the soul of tlie
world ? "Who of you is so silly as to think so ? AVhy, then,
have they made to you two goddesses ? The only reason
seems to be, that your wise ancestors have provided, not that
many gods should rule you, but that many of such demons as
are delighted with those vanities and falsehoods should possess
you. But why has tliat Salacia, according to this interpreta-
tion, lost the lower part of the sea, seeing that she was repre-
sented as subject to her husband ? For in saying that she
is the receding wave, ye have put her on the surface. Was
she enraged at her husband for taking Venilia as a concubine,
and thus drove him from the upper part of the sea ?

23. Concerning the earth, which Varro affirms to be a goddess, because that soul
of the world which he thinks to be God pervades aUo this lowest part of
his body, and imparts to it a divine force.

Surely the earth, ^^'hich we see full of its own lining crea-
tures, is one ; but for all that, it is but a mighty mass among
the elements, and the lowest part of the world. AVhy, then,
would they have it to be a goddess ? Is it because it is fruit-
ful ? Wliy, then, are not men rather held to be gods, who
render it fruitful by cultivating it ; but though they plough
it, do not adore it ? But, say they, the part of the soul of the
world which pervades it makes it a goddess. As if it were
not a far more evident thing, nay, a thing which is not called
in question, that there is a soul in man. And yet men are
not held to be gods, but (a thing to be sadly lamented), with
wonderful and pitiful delusion, are subjected to those who are
not gods, and than wliom they themselves are better, as the
objects of deserved worship and adoration. And certainly the
same Varro, in the book concerning the select gods, allirnis
that there are three grades of soul in universal nature. One
whicli pervades all the living parts of the body, and has not
sensation, but only the power uf life, — that principle which
penetrates into the bones, nails, and hair. By this principle
in the world trees are nourished, and grow without being pos-

BOOK VII.] VAimo'S INTERPRETATIONS. 287

sessed of sensation, and live in a manner peculiar to them-
selves. The second grade of soul is that in which there is
sensation. This principle penetrates into the eyes, ears,
nostrils, mouth, and the organs of sensation. The third grade
of soul is the highest, and is called mind, where intelligence
has its throne. This grade of soul no mortal creatures except
man are possessed of Now this part of the soul of the world,
Varro says, is called God, and in us is called Genius. And the
stones and earth in the world, which we see, and which are
not pervaded hy the power of sensation, are, as it were, the
bones and nails of God. Again, the sun, moon, and stars,
which we perceive, and by which He perceives, are His organs
of perception. Moreover, the ether is His mind ; and by the
virtue which is in it, which penetrates into the stars, it also
makes them gods ; and because it penetrates through them
into the earth, it makes it the goddess Tellus, whence again it
enters and permeates the sea and ocean, making them the god
Neptune.

Let him return from this, which he thinks to be natural
theology, back to that from .which he went out, in order
to rest from the fatigue occasioned by the many turnings and
windings of his path. Let him return, I say, let him re-
turn to the civil theology. I wish to detain him there a
while. I have somewhat to say which has to do with that
theology. I am not yet saying, that if the earth and stones
are similar to our bones and nails, they are in like manner
devoid of intelligence, as they are devoid of sensation. Nor
am I saying that, if our bones and nails are said to have in-
telligence, because they are in a man who has intelligence, he
who says that the things analogous to these in the world are
gods, is as stupid as he is who says that our bones and nails
are men. We shall perhaps have occasion to dispute these
things with the philosophers. At present, however, I wish to
deal with Varro as a political theologian. For it is possible
that, though he may seem to have wished to lift up his head,
as it were, into the liberty of natural theology, the conscious-
ness that the book with which he was occupied was one con-
cerning a subject belonging to civil theology, may have caused
him to relapse into the point of view of that theology, and to

288 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

say this in order that the ancestors of his nation, and other
states, might not be believed to have bestowed on Neptune an
irrational worsliip. What I am to say is this :. Since the eartli
is one, wliy has not that part of the soul of the world which
permeates the earth made it that one goddess which he calls
Tellus ? But had it done so, what then had become of Orcus,
the brother of Jupiter and Keptune, whom they call Fatlier
Dis ? ^ And where, in that case, had been his wife Proserpine,
who, according to another opinion given in the same book, is
called, not the fecundity of tlie earth, but its lower part ?^
But if they say that part of the soul of the world, when it
permeates tlie upper part of the earth, makes the god Father
Dis, but wlien it pervades the nether part of. the same the
goddess Proserpine ; what, in that case, will that Tellus be ?
For all that which she was has been divided into these two
parts, and these two gods ; so that it is impossible to find
what to make or where to place her as a third goddess, except
it be said that tliose divinities Orcus and Proserpine are the
one goddess Tellus, and that they are not three gods, but one
or two, whilst notwithstanding they are called three, held to
be three, worsliipped as three, having their own several altars,
their own shrines, rites, images, priests, whilst their own false
demons also through these things defile the prostituted soul.
I^t this further question be answered : AVhat part of the earth
does a part of the soul of the world permeate in order to make
the god Tellumo ? No, says he ; but the earth being one and
the same, has a double life, — the masculine, which produces
seed, and the feminine, whicli receives and nourislies the seed.
Hence it has been called Tellus from the feminine principle,
and Tellumo from the masculine. Why, then, do the priests,
as he indicates, perform divine service to four gods, two others
being added, — namely, to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and Paisor ?
We have already sj)()ken concerning Tellus and Tellumo. Ihit
why do they worship Altor ?* Because, says he, all that
s])rings of the earth is nourished by the earth. Wherefore
do they worship IJusor ?* I'ecause all things return back
again to the place whence they proceeded.

' Sec c. 16. " Varro, De Ling. Lat. v. 63.

* NouriBher. * Kdurucr.

BOOK VII.] TELLUS AND HER RITES. 289

24. Concerning the surnames of Tellus and their significations, ichlch, although
they indicate many properties, ought not to have established the opinion
that there is a corresponding number of gods.

The one earth, then, on account of this fourfold virtue,
ought to have had four surnames, "but not to have been con-
sidered as four gods, — as Jupiter and Juno, though they have
so many surnames, are for all that only single deities, — for by
all these surnames it is signified that a manifold virtue be-
longs to one god or to one goddess ; but the multitude of sur-
names does not imply a multitude of gods. But as sometimes
even the vilest women themselves grow tired of those crowds
which they have sought after nnder the impulse of wicked
passion, so also the soul, become vile, and prostituted to im-
pure spirits, sometimes begins to loathe to multiply to itself
gods to whom to surrender itself to be polluted by them, as
much as it once delicjhted in so doincr. For Varro himself,
as if ashamed of that crowd of gods, would make Tellus to be
one goddess. " They say," says he, " that whereas the one
great mother has a tympanum, it is signified that she is the
orb of the earth ; whereas she has towers on her head, towns
are signified ; and whereas seats are fixed round about her, it
is signified that whilst all things move, she moves not. And
their having made the Galli to serve this goddess, signifies
that they who are in need of seed ought to follow the earth,
for in it all seeds are found. By their throwing themselves
down before her, it is taught," he says, " that they who culti-
vate the earth should not sit idle, for there is always some-
thing for them to do. The sound of the cymbals signifies the
noise made by the throwing of iron utensils, and by men's
hands, and all other noises connected with agricultural opera-
tions ; and these cymbals are ot brass, because the ancients
used brazen utensils in their agriculture before iron was dis-
covered. They place beside the goddess an unbound and
tame lion, to show that there is no kind of land so wild and
so excessively barren as that it would be profitless to attempt
to bring it in and cultivate it." Then he adds that, because
they gave many names and surnames to mother Tellus, it
came to be thought that these signified many gods. " They
think," says he, " that Tellus is Ops, because the eartli is im-

VOL. I. T

290 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

proved by labour ; ^lother, because it brings forth much ;
Great, because it brings forth seed ; Proserpine, because fruits
creep forth from it ; Vesta, because it is invested witli herbs.
And thus," says he, " they not at all absurdly identify other
goddesses with the earth." If, then, it is one goddess (though,
if the truth were consulted, it is not even that), why do they
nevertheless separate it into many ? Let there be many
names of one goddess, and let there not be as many goddesses
as there are names.

But the authority of the erring ancients weighs heavily on
Varro, and compels him, after having expressed this opinion,
to show signs of uneasiness ; for he immediately adds,
" With which things the opinion of the ancients, who thought
that there were really many goddesses, does not conflict."
How does it not conflict, when it is entirely a different tiling
to say that one goddess has many names, and to say that
there are many goddesses ? But it is possible, he says, that
the same thing may both be one, and yet have in it a plurality
of tilings. I grant that there are many things in one man ;
are there therefore in him many men ? In like manner, in
one goddess there are many things ; are there therefore also
many goddesses ? But let them divide, unite, multiply, re-
duplicate, and implicate as they like.

These are the famous mysteries of Tellus and the Great
Mother, all of which are shown to have reference to mortal
seeds and to agriculture. Do these things, then, — namely,
the tympanum, the towers, the Galli, the tossing to and fro
of limbs, the noise of cymbals, the images of lions, — do these
things, having this reference and this end, promise cteiTial
life ? Do the mutilated Galli, then, serve this Great ^Mother
in order to signify that they who are in need of seed should
follow the earth, as though it were not rather the case that
this very service caused them to want seed ? For whether do
they, by following this goddess, acquire seed, being in want of
it, or, by following her, lose seed when they have it ? Is this
to interpret or to deprecate ? Nor is it considered to what a
degree malign demons have gained the upper hand, inasmuch
as they have been able to exact such cruel rites without having
dared to promise any great things in return for them. Had

BOOK VII.] " MUTILATION OF ATYS. 291

the earth not been a goddess, men would have, by labouring,
laid their hands on it in order to obtain seed through it, and
would not have laid violent hands on themselves in order to
lose seed on account of it. Had it not been a goddess, it
would have become so fertile by the hands of others, that it
would not have compelled a man to be rendered barren by
his own hands ; nor that in the festival of Liber an honour-
able matron put a Avreath on the private parts of a man in
the sight of the multitude, where perhaps her husband was
standing by blushing and perspiring, if there is any shame left
in men ; and that in the celebration of marriages the newly-
married bride was ordered to sit upon Priapus. These things
are bad enough, but they are small and contemptible in com-
parison with that most cruel abomination, or most abominable
cruelty, by which either set is so deluded that neither perishes
of its wound. There the enchantment of fields is feared ; here
the amputation of members is not feared. There the modesty
of the bride is outraged, but in such a manner as that neither
her fruitfulness nor even her virginity is taken away ; here
a man is so mutilated that he is neither changed into a woman
nor remains a man.

25. The interpretation of the mutilation of Atys which the doctrine of the
Greek sages set forth.

Varro has not spoken of that Atys, nor sought out any
interpretation for him, in memory of whose being loved by
Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned and wise
Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation
so holy and so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Por-
phyry has said that Atys signifies the flowers of spring, which
is the most beautiful season, and therefore was mutilated
because the flower falls before the fruit appears.^ They
have not, then, compared the man himself, or rather that
semblance of a man they called Atys, to the flower, but his
male organs, — these, indeed, fell wdiilst he was living. Did
I say fell ? nay, truly they did not fall, nor were they plucked
off, but torn away. Nor when that flower was lost did any
fruit follow, but rather sterility. What, then, do they say
is signified by the castrated Atys himself, and whatever re-

' In the book De liaiione Naturali Deorum.

292 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

mained to liini alter his castration ? To what do they refer
that ? What interpretation does that give rise to ? Do they,
after vain endeavours to discover an interpretation, seek to
persuade men that that is rather to be believed which report
has made public, and whicli has also been written concerning
his liaving been a mutihated man ? Our Van^o has very pro-
perly opposed this, and has been unwilling to state it ; for it
certainly was not unlcnown to that most learned man.

26. Concerning the abomination of the sacred rites of the Great Mother.

Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same Great
Mother, in defiance of all the modesty which belongs to men
and women, Varro has not wislied to say anything, nor do I
remember to have read anywhere auglit concerning them.
These effeminates, no later than yesterday, were going through
the streets and places of Carthage with anointed hair, whitened
faces, relaxed bodies, and feminine gait, exacting from the
people the means of maintaining their ignominious lives.
Nothing has been said concerning them. Interpretation
failed, reason blushed, speech was silent. The Great Mother
has surpassed all her sons, not in greatness of deity, but of
crime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is
to be compared. His deformity was only in his image ; hers
was the deformity of cruelty in her sacred rites. He has a
redundancy of members in stone images ; she inflicts the loss
of members on men. This abomination is not surpassed by
the licentious deeds of Jupiter, so many and so gi*eat. He,
with all his seductions ot women, only disgraced heaven witli
one Ganymede ; slie, with so many avowed and public effemi-
nates, has both defded the earth and outraged heaven. Per-
liaps we may either compare Saturn to tliis Magna Mater, or
even set him before her in tliis kind of abominable cruelty,
for he mutihated his father. But at the festivals of Saturn
men could rather be slain by the hands of others tlian muti-
lated by their own. He devoured liis sons, as the poets say,
and the natural theologists interpret tliis as they list. His-
tory says he slew them. But the Romans never received,
like the Carthaginians, the custom of sacrificing their sons to
him. This Great Mother of the gods, however, has brought

BOOK VII.] rJTES OF THE GREAT MOTHER. 293

mutilated men into Eoman temples, and has preserved that
cruel custom, being believed to promote the strength of the
Eomans by emasculating their men. Compared with this
evil, what are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus,
and the base and flagitious deeds of the rest of them, which
we might bring forward from books, were it not that they are
daily sung and danced in the theatres ? But what are these
things to so great an evil, — an evil whose magnitude was only
proportioned to the greatness of the Great Mother, — espe-
cially as these are said to have been invented by the poets ?
as if the poets had also invented this, that they are accept-
able to the gods. Let it be imputed, then, to the audacity
and impudence of the poets that these things have been sung
and written of But that tliey have been incorporated into
the body of divine rites and honours, the deities themselves
demanding and extorting that incorporation, what is that but
the crime of the gods ? nay more, the confession of demons
and the deception of w^retched men ? But as to this, that
the Great Mother is considered to be worshipped in the appro-
priate form when she is w^orshipped by the consecration of
mutilated men, this is not an invention of the poets, nay,
they have rather shrunk from it with horror than sung of it.
Ought any one, then, to be consecrated to these select gods,
that he may live blessedly after death, consecrated to whom
he could not live decently before death, being subjected to such
foul superstitions, and bound over to unclean demons ? But
all these things, says Varro, are to be referred to the world. ^
Let him consider if it be not rather to the unclean.^ But
why not refer that to the w^orld which is demonstrated to be
in the world ? We, however, seek for a mind which, trusting
to true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but for
the sake of God praises the world as a work of God, and,
purified from mundane defilements, comes pure^ to God Him-
self who founded the world.*

27. Concerning the figments of the j)hysical theologisis, who neither toorship the
true divinity, nor perjorm the tvorship wherewith the true divinity should
he served.

We see that these select gods have, indeed, become more

1 Mundum. ' Immundum. ^ Mundus. ^ ^Iiuidimi.

204 THE CITY OF GOD. [OOOK VII.

famous than tlio rest ; not, liowever, that their merits may be
brought to light, but that their opprobrious deeds may not
be hid. Whence it is more credil)le tliat they were men, as
not only poetic but also liistorical literature has handed down.
For this which Virgil says,

"Then from Olympus' heights came down
Good Saturn, exiUil from his throne
By Jove, his mightier heir ;"^

and wliat follows with reference to this affair, is fully related
by the historian Euhemerus, and has been translated into
Latin by Ennius. And as they who have \vritten before us
in the Greek or in the Latin tongue against such errors as
these have said much concerning this matter, I have thought
it unnecessary to dwell upon it. AVhen I consider those physi-
cal reasons, then, by which learned and acute men attempt to
turn human things into divine things, all I see is that they
have been able to refer these things only to temporal works
and to that which has a corporeal nature, and even thougli
invisible still mutable ; and this is by no means the true God.
But if this worship had been performed as the symbolism of
ideas at least congruous with religion, though it would indeed
have been cause of griet that the true God was not announced
and proclaimed by its symbolism, nevertheless it could have
been in some degree borne with, when it did not occasion
and command the performance of such foul and abominable
things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or the
soul for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is
happy, how much more impious is it to worship those tilings
through wliich neither soul nor body can obtain either salva-
tion or human honour ? "Wlierefore if with temple, priest, and
sacrifice, wliich are due to the true God, any element of the
world be worshipped, or any created spirit, even though not
iin})ure and evil, that worship is still evil, not because the
things are evil by which the worship is performed, but because
those things ought only to be used in the worship of Him to
whom alone such worship and service are due. lUit if any
one insist that he worships the one true God, — that is, the
Creator of every soul and of every body, — with stupid and

• Virgil, J?neiV/, viii. 319-20.

BOOK VII.] INCONSISTENCY OF VARRO. 295

monstrous idols, with human victims, with putting a wreath
on the male organ, with the wages of unchastity, with the
cutting of limbs, with emasculation, with the consecration of
effeminates, with impure and obscene plays, such a one does
not sin because he worships One who ought not to be wor-
shipped, but because he worships Him who ought to be wor-
shipped in a way in which He ought not to be worshipped.
But he who worships with such things, — that is, foul and
obscene things, — and that not the true God, namely, the
maker of soul and body, but a creature, even though not a
wicked creature, whether it be soul or body, or soul and body
together, twice sins against God, because he both worships
for God what is not God, and also worships with such things
as neither God nor what is not God ought to be worshipped
with. It is, indeed, manifest how these pagans worship, — that
is, how shamefully and criminally they worship ; but what or
whom they worship would have been left in obscurity, had
not their history testified that those same confessedly base
and foul rites were rendered in obedience to the demands of
the gods, who exacted them with terrible severity. Wherefore
it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil theology is
occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and most
impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and
through these to take possession of stupid hearts.

28. lliat the doctrine of Varro concerning theology is in no part consistent
with itself.

To what purpose, then, is it that this most learned and most
acute man Varro attempts, as it were, with subtle disputation,
to reduce and refer all these gods to heaven and earth ? He
cannot do it. They go out of his hands like water; they
shrink back ; they slip down and fall. For when about to
speak of the females, that is, the goddesses, he says, " Since,
as I observed in the first book concerning places, heaven and
earth are the two origins of the gods, on which account they
are called celestials and terrestrials, and as I began in the former
books with heaven, speaking of Janus, whom some have said
to be heaven, and others the earth, so I now commence with
TeUus in speaking concerning the goddesses." I can under-
stand what embarrassment so great a mind was experiencing.

296 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIT.

For he is influenced by the perception of a certain plausible
resemblance, when he says that the heaven is that which does,
and the earth that which suflers, and therefore attributes the
masculine principle to the one, and tlie feminine to the other, —
not considering that it is rather He who made both heaven
and earth who is the maker of both activity and passivity.
On this principle he interprets the celebrated mysteries of the
Samothracians, and promises, with an air of great devoutness,
tliat he will by writing expound these mysteries, which have
not been so much as known to his countrymen, and will send
them his exposition. Then he says that he had from many
proofs gathered that, in those mysteries, among the images
one signifies heaven, anotlier the earth, another the patterns
of things, which Plato calls ideas. He makes Jupiter to
signify lieaven, Juno the earth, Minerva the ideas. Heaven,
by which anything is made ; the earth, from which it is made;
and the pattern, according to which it is made. But, with
respect to tlie last, I am forgetting to say that Plato attributed
so great an importance to these ideas as to say, not that any-
thing was made by heaven according to them, but that accord-
ing to them heaven itself was made.^ To return, however, — it
is to be observed that Varro has, in the book on the select
gods, lost tliat theory of these gods, in whom he has, as it
were, embraced all things. For he assigns the male gods to
heaven, the females to earth ; among which latter he has
placed Minerva, whom he had before placed above heaven
itself Then the male god Neptune is in the sea, wliich
pertains ratlier to earth than to heaven. Last of all, father
Dis, wlio is called in Greek UXovrcov, another male god,
brother of both (Jupiter and Neptune), is also held to be
a god of the eartli, liolding the upper region of the earth
himself, and allotting the nether region to his wife Proserpine.
How, tlion, do they attempt to refer the gods to heaven, and
tlie goddesses to earth ? "What solidity, what consistency,
what sobriety lias this disputation ? But that Tellus is the
origin ot the goddesses, — the great mother, to wit, beside whom
there is continually the noise of the mad and abominable
revelry of effeminates and mutilated men, and men who cud

^ lu the Tiniaus.

BOOK VII.] THE ONE TRUE GOD OYER ALL. 297

themselves, and indulge in frantic gesticulations, — how is it,
then, that Janus is called the head of the gods, and Tellus the
head of the goddesses ? In the one case error does not make
one head, and in the other frenzy does not make a sane one.
Why do they vainly attempt to refer these to the world ?
Even if they could do so, no pious person worships the world
for the true God. Nevertheless, plain truth makes it evident
that they are not able even to do this. Let them rather
identify them with dead men and most wicked demons, and
no further question will remain.

29. That all things which the physical theologisfs have referred to the world and

its parts, they ought to have referred to the one true God.

For all those things which, according to the account given
of those gods, are referred to the world by so-called physical
interpretation, may, without any religious scruple, be rather
assigned to the true God, who made heaven and earth, and
created every soul and every body ; and the following is the
manner in which we see that this may be done. We worship
God, — not heaven and earth, of which two parts this world
consists, nor the soul or souls diffused through all livinfT
things, — but God who made heaven and earth, and all things
which are in them ; who made every soul, whatever be the
nature of its life, whether it have life without sensation and
reason, or life with sensation, or life with both sensation and
reason.

30. How piety distinguishes the Creator from the creatures, so that, instead of
one God, there are not worshipped as many gods as there are works of the
one author.

And now, to begin to go over those works of the one true
God, on account of which these have made to themselves
many and false gods, whilst they attempt to give an honour-
able interpretation to their many most abominable and most
infamous mysteries, — we worship that God who has appointed
to the natures created by Him both the beginnings and the
end of their existing and moving ; who holds, knows, and dis-
poses the causes of things; who hath created the virtue of
seeds ; who hath given to what creatures He would a rational
soul, which is called mind ; who hath bestowed the faculty and
use of speech ; who hath imparted the gift of foretelling future

208 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK \ni.

things to whatever spirits it seemed to Him good ; who also
Himself predicts future things, through whom lie pleases,
and through whom He will removes diseases ; who, when the
humap race is to be corrected and chastised by wars, regu-
lates also the beginnings, progress, and ends of these wars ;
who hath created and governs the most vehement and most
violent fire of this world, in due relation and proportion to
the other elements of immense nature ; who is the governor
of all the waters ; who hath made the sun brightest of all
material lights, and hath given liim suitable power and
motion ; who hath not withdrawn, even from the inhabitants
of the nether world. His dominion and power; who liath
appointed to mortal natures their suitable seed and nourish-
ment, dry or liquid ; who establishes and makes fruitful the
earth ; who bountifully bestows its fruits on animals and on
men ; who knows and ordains, not only principal causes, but
also subsequent causes ; Avho hath determined for the moon
her motion ; who affords w\ays in heaven and on earth lor
passage from one place to another ; who hath granted also to
human minds, which He hath created, the knowledge of the
various arts for the help of life and nature ; who hath
appointed the union of male and female for tlie propagation
of offspring ; who hath favoured the societies of men with the
gift of terrestrial fire for the simplest and most familiar pur-
poses, to burn on the hearth and to give light. These are,
tlien, the things which that most acute and most learned man
Varro has laboured to distribute among the select gods, by I
know not what physical interpretation, which he has got from
other sources, and also conjectured for himself. But these
tilings the one true God makes and does, but as the same God,
— that is, as He who is wholly everywhere, included in no
space, bound by no chains, mutable in no part ot His being,
filling heaven and earth with omnipresent power, not with a
needy nature. Therefore He governs all tilings in such a
manner as to allow them to perform and exercise their own
proper movements. For although they can be nothing without
Him, they are not what He is. He does also many things
through angels; but only from Himself does He beatify angels.
So also, though He send angels to men for certain purposes,

BOOK VII.] THE GRACE OF GOD. 299

He does not for all that beatify men by the good inherent in
the angels, but by Himself, as He does the angels themselves.

31. What benefits God gives to the follozvers of the truth to enjoy over and above
His general bounty.

For, besides such benefits as, according to tliis administra-
tion of nature of which we have made some mention. He
lavishes on good and bad alike, we have from Him a great
manifestation of great love, which belongs only to the good.
For although we can never sufficiently give thanks to Him,
that we are, that we live, that we behold heaven and earth,
that we have mind and reason by which to seek after Him
who made all these things, nevertheless, what hearts, what
number of tongues, shall affirm that they are sufficient to
render thanks to Him for this, that He hath not wholly
departed from us, laden and overwhelmed with sins, averse to
the contemplation of His light, and blinded by the love of
darkness, that is, of iniquity, but hath sent to us His own
Word, who is His only Son, that by His birth and suffering
for us in the flesh, which He assumed, we might know how
much God valued man, and that by that unique sacrifice we
might be purified from all our sins, and that, love being shed
abroad in our hearts by His Spirit, w^e might, having sur-
mounted all difficulties, come into eternal rest, and the
ineffable sweetness of the contemplation of Himself ?

32. That at no time in the past was the mystery of Christ's redemption awanting,
but was at all times declared, though in various forms.

This mystery of eternal life, even from the beginning of the
human race, was, by certain signs and sacraments suitable to
the times, announced through angels to those to whom it was
meet. Then the Hebrew people was congregated into one
republic, as it were, to perform this mystery ; and in that re-
public was foretold, sometimes through men who understood
what they spake, and sometimes through men who understood
not, all that had transpired since the advent of Christ until now,
and all that will transpire. This same nation, too, was after-
wards dispersed through the nations, in order to testify to the
scriptures in which eternal salvation in Christ had been declared.
For not only the prophecies which are contained in words, nor
only the precepts for the right conduct of life, whicli teach

300 THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK VII.

morals and piety, and are contained in the sacred writings, — not
only these, but also the rites, priesthood, tabernacle or temple,
altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, and whatever else belongs to that
service which is due to God, and which in Greek is properly
called Xarpela, — all these signified and fore-announced those
things which we who believe in Jesus Christ unto eternal life
believe to have been fulfilled, or behold in process of fulfilment,
or confidently believe shall yet be fulfilled.

33. That only through the Christian religion could the deceit of malign spirits,
who rejoice in the errors of men, have been manifested.

This, the only true religion, has alone been able to manifest
that the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who
desire to be thought gods, availing themselves of the names of
certain defunct souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures,
and with proud impurity rejoicing in things most base and
infamous, as thougli in divine honours, and en^^dng human
souls their conversion to the true God. From whose most
cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when he
believes on Him who has afforded an example of humility,
following which men may rise as great as was that pride by
which they fell. Hence are not only those gods, concerning
whom we have already spoken much, and many others belong-
ing to different nations and lands, but also those of whom we
are now treating, who have been selected as it were into the
senate of the gods, — selected, however, on account of the
notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity
of their virtues, — whose sacred tilings Varro attempts to
refer to certain natural reasons, seeking to make base things
honourable, but cannot find how to square and agree with
these reasons, because tliese are not tlie causes of those rites,
which he tliinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so. For
had not only tliese, but also all others of this kind, been real
causes, even though thoy had nothing to do with the true God
and eternal life, which is to be sought in religion, they would,
by affording some sort of reason drawn from the nature of
things, have mitigated in some degree that offence which was
occasioned by some turpitude or absurdity in the sacred rites,
which was not understood. This he attempted to do in
respect to certain fables of the theatres, or mysteries of the

BOOK VIL] books OF NUMA POMPILIUS. 301

slirines ; but lie did not acquit the theatres of likeness to the
shrines, but rather condemned the shrines for likeness to the
theatres. However, he in some way made the attempt to
soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things, by rendering
what he would have to be natural interpretations.

34. Concerning the hooTcs of Numa Pompilius, whicJi the senate ordered to be
burned, in order that the causes of sacred rites therein assigned should
not become known.

But, on the other hand, we find, as the same most learned
man has related, that the causes of the sacred rites which
were given from the books of ISTuma Pompilius could by no
means be tolerated, and were considered unworthy, not only
to become known to the religious by being read, but even to
lie written in the darlaiess in which they had been concealed.
For now let me say what I promised in the third book of this
work to say in its proper place. For, as we read in the same
Varro's book on the worship of the gods, "A certain one
Terentius had a field at the Janiculum, and once, when his
ploughman was passing the plough near to the tomb of Numa
Pompilius, he turned up from the ground the books of Numa,
in which were wiitten the causes of the sacred institutions ;
which books he carried to the prsetor, who, having read the
beginnings of them, referred to the senate what seemed to be
a matter of so much importance. And when the chief senators
had read certain of the causes why this or that rite was insti-
tuted, the senate assented to the dead Numa, and the conscript
fathers, as though concerned for the interests of religion,
ordered the prsetor to burn the books."-^ Let each one believe
what he thinks ; nay, let every champion of such impiety
say whatever mad contention may suggest. For my part, let
it suffice to suggest that the causes of those sacred things
which were written down by King Numa Pompilius, the
institutor of the Roman rites, ought never to have become
known to people or senate, or even to the priests themselves ;
and also that Numa himself attained to these secrets of
demons by an illicit curiosity, in order that he might write
them down, so as to be able, by reading, to be reminded of
them. However, though he was king, and had no cause to

^ Plutarch's Numa : Livv, xl. 29.

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VII.

be afraid of any one, he neither dared to teach them to any
one, nor to destroy them by obliteration, or any other form of
destruction. Therefore, because he was unwilling that any
one should know them, lest men should be taught infamous
things, and because he was afraid to violate them, lest he
should enrage the demons against himself, he buried them in
what he thought a safe place, believing that a plough could
not approach his sepulchre. But the senate, fearing to con-
demn tlie religious solemnities of their ancestors, and therefore
compelled to assent to Numa, were nevertheless so convinced
that those books were pernicious, that they did not order
them to be buried again, knowing that human curiosity would
thereby be excited to seek with far greater eagerness after
the matter already divulged, but ordered the scandalous relics
to be destroyed with fire ; because, as they thought it was now
a necessity to perform those sacred rites, they judged tliat tlie
error arising from ignorance of their causes was more tolerable
than the disturbance which the knowledcre of them would
occasion the state.

35. Concerning the, hydromancy through lohlch Xuma was hefooled by certain
images of demons seen in the water.

For Xuma himself also, to whom no prophet of God, no
holy angel was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydro-
mancy, that he might see the images of tlie gods in the water
(or, rather, appearances whereby the demons made sport of
liini), and might learn from them what he ought to ordain and
observe in the sacred rites. This kind of divination, says
Varro, was introduced from the Persians, and was used by
Numa himself, and at an after time by tlie philosopher
Pythagoras. In this divination, he says, they also inquire at
the inhabitants of the nether world, and make use of blood ;
and this the Greeks call peKpo/xavreiav. Piut whether it be
called necromancy or hydromancy it is the same thing, for in
either case the dead are supposed to foretell future things.
But by what artifices these things are done, let themselves
consider; for I am unwilling to say that these artifices were
wont to be prohibited by the laws, and to be very severely
punished even in the Gentile states, before the advent of our
Saviour. I am unwilling, I say, to aflirm this, for perhaps

BOOK Vn.] NUMA'S HYDROMANCY. 303

even such things were then allowed. However, it was by
these arts that Pompilius learned those sacred rites which he
gave forth as facts, wliilst he concealed their causes; for
even he himself was afraid of that which he had learned.
The senate also caused the books in which those causes were
recorded to be burned. What is it, then, to me, that Varro
attempts to adduce all sorts of fanciful physical interpreta-
tions, which if these books had contained, they would certainly
not have been burned ? For otherwise the conscript fathers
would also have burned those books which Varro published
and dedicated to the high priest Csesar.^ Now Numa is said
to have married the nymph Egeria, because (as Varro ex-
plains it in the forementioned book) he carried forth^ water
wherewith to perform his hydromancy. Thus facts are wont
to be converted into fables through false colourings. It was
by that hydromancy, then, that that over-curious Eoman king
learned both the sacred rites which were to be written in the
books of the priests, and also the causes of those rites, — which
latter, however, he was unwilling that any one besides himself
should know. Wlierefore he made these causes, as it were,
to die along with himself, taking care to have them written
by themselves, and removed from the knowledge of men by
being buried in the earth. Wherefore the things which are
written in those books were either abominations of demons,
so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil theology
execrable even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who
had accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites
themselves, or they were nothing else than the accounts of
dead men, whom, through the lapse of ages, almost all the
Gentile nations had come to believe to be immortal gods ;
whilst those same demons were delighted even with such rites,
having presented themselves to receive worship under pretence
of being those very dead men whom they had caused to be
thought immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, performed
in order to establish that belief But, by the hidden provi-
dence of the true God, these demons were permitted to confess
these things to their friend Numa, having been gained by those
arts through which necromancy could be performed, and yet

1 Comp. Lactantius, InstiL i. 6. ^ Egesserit.

304 THE CTTY OF GOD. [BOOK VIT.

were not constrained to admonish him rather at his death to
l)iirn than to Liiiy the books in which they were written.
But, in order that these books might be unknown, the demons
could not resist the plough by which they were thrown up, or
the pen of Varro, through which the things which were done
in reference to this matter have come down even to our know-
ledge. For they are not able to effect anything which they
are not allowed ; but they are permitted to influence those
whom God, in His deep and just judgment, according to their
deserts, gives over either to be simply afflicted by them, or to
be also subdued and deceived. But how pernicious these
writings were judged to be, or how alien from the worship of
the true Divinity, may be understood from the fact that the
senate preferred to burn what Pompilius had hid, rather than
to fear what he feared, so that he could not dare to do that.
AMierefore let him who does not desire to Hve a jjious life
even now, seek eternal life by means of such rites. Bat let
him who does not wish to have fellowship with malign demons
have no fear for the noxious superstition wherewith they are
worshipped, but let him recognise the true religion by which
they are unmasked and vanquished.

BOOK VIII.] THE PHILOSOPHERS. 305

BOOK EIGHTH.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE COMES NOW TO THE THIRD KIND OF THEOLOGY, THAT IS, THE
NATURAL, AND TAKES UP THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE WORSHIP OF
THE GODS OF THE NATURAL THEOLOGY IS OF ANY AVAIL TOWARDS
SECURING BLESSEDNESS IN THE LIFE TO COME. THIS QUESTION HE
PREFERS TO DISCUSS WITH THE PLATONISTS, BECAUSE THE PLATONIC
SYSTEM IS "facile PRINCEPS" AMONG PHILOSOPHIES, AND MAKES THE
NEAREST APPROXIMATION TO CHRISTIAN TRUTH. IN PURSUING THIS
ARGUMENT, HE FIRST REFUTES APULEIUS, AND ALL WHO MAINTAIN THAT
THE DEMONS SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED AS MESSENGERS AND MEDIATORS
BETWEEN GODS AND MEN ; DEMONSTRATING THAT BY NO POSSIBILITY CAN
MEN BE RECONCILED TO GOOD GODS BY DEMONS, WHO ARE THE SLAVES OF
VICE, AND WHO DELIGHT IN AND PATRONIZE WHAT GOOD AND WISE
MEN ABHOR AND CONDEMN, — THE BLASPHEMOUS FICTIONS OF POETS,
THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS, AND MAGICAL ARTS.

1, That the question of natural theology is to he discussed with those philosophers
who sought a more excellent wisdom.

WE shall require to apply our mind with far greater
intensity to the present question than was requisite
in the solution and unfolding of the questions handled in the
preceding books ; for it is not with ordinary men, but with
philosophers that we must confer concerning the theology
which they call natural. For it is not like the fabulous, that
is, the theatrical ; nor the civil, that is, the urban theology :
the one of which displays the crimes of the gods, whilst the
other manifests their criminal desires, which demonstrate them
to be rather malign demons than gods. It is, we say, with
philosophers we have to confer with respect to this theology, —
men whose very name, if rendered into Latin, signifies those
who profess the love of wisdom. Now, if wisdom is God,
who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority
and truth,-^ then the philosopher is a lover of God. But since
the thing itself, which is called by this name, exists not in all
who glory in the name, — for it does not follow, of course, that
^ Wisdom vii. 24-27.
VOL. L U

3 on THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

all who are called philosophers are lovers of true wisdom, —
we must needs select from the number of those with whose
opinions we have been able to acquaint ourselves by reading,
some with whom we may not unworthily engage in the treat-
ment of this question. For I have not in this work under-
taken to refute all the vain opinions of the philosophers,
but only such as pertain to tlieology, which Greek word we
understand to mean an account or explanation of the divine
nature. Nor, again, have I undertaken to refute all the vain
theological opinions of all the philosophers, but only of such
of them as, agreeing in the belief that there is a divine nature,
and that this divine nature is concerned about human affairs,
do nevertheless deny that tlie worship of the one unchangeable
God is sufficient for the obtaining of a blessed life after death,
as well as at the present time ; and hold that, in order to
obtain that life, many gods, created, indeed, and appointed to
tlieir several spheres by that one God, are to be worshipped.
These approach nearer to the truth than even Yarro ; for,
whilst he saw no difficulty in extending natural tlieology in
its entirety even to the world and the soul of the world, these
acknowledcre God as existinj^ above all tliat is of the nature of
soul, and as the Creator not only of this visible world, which
is often called heaven and earth, but also of every soul what-
soever, and as Him who gives blessedness to the rational soul,
— of which kind is the human soul, — by participation in His
own uncliangeable and incorporeal light. There is no one,
who has even a slender knowledge of tliese things, who does
not know of the Platonic philosophers, who derive their name
from their master Plato. Concerning this Plato, then, I will
briefly state such tilings as I deem necessary to the present
question, mentioning beforehand those who preceded him in
time in the same department of literature.

2. Concerninfj the two schools of philosophers, that is, the Italic and Ionic, and

their founders.

As far as concerns the literature of the Greeks, whose
language holds a more illustrious place than any of the lan-
guages of the other nations, history mentions two schools of
])hilosophers, the one called the Italic school, originating in
that part of Italy which was formerly called Magna Gra^cia;

BOOK VIII.] EARLY PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS. 307

the other called the Ionic school, having its origin in those
regions which are still called by the name of Greece. The
Italic school had for its founder Pythagoras of Samos, to whom
also the term "philosophy" is said to owe its origin. For
whereas formerly those who seemed to excel others by the
laudable manner in which they regulated their lives were
called sages, Pythagoras, on being asked what he professed,
replied that he was a philosopher, that is, a student or lover
of wisdom ; for it seemed to him to be the height of arrogance
to profess oneself a sage.^ The founder of the Ionic school,
again, was Thales of Miletus, one of those seven who were
styled the " seven sages," of whom six were distinguished by
the kind of life they lived, and by certain maxims which they
gave forth for the proper conduct of life. Thales was distin-
guished as an investigator into the nature of things ; and, in
order that he might have successors in his school, he com-
mitted his dissertations to writing. That, however, which
especially rendered him eminent was his ability, by means of
astronomical calculations, even to predict eclipses of the sun
and moon. He thought, however, that water was the first
principle of things, and that of it all the elements of the
world, the world itself, and all things which are generated in
it, ultimately consist. Over all this w^ork, liowever, which,
when we consider the world, appears so admirable, he set
nothing of the nature of divine mind. To him succeeded
Anaximander, his pupil, who held a different opinion concern-
ing the nature of things ; for he did not hold that all things
spring from one principle, as Thales did, who held that prin-
. ciple to be water, but thought that each thing springs from its
own proper principle. These principles of things he believed
to be infinite in number, and thought that they generated
innumerable worlds, and all the things which arise in them.
He thought, also, that these worlds are subject to a perpetual
process of alternate dissolution and regeneration, each one
continuing for a longer or shorter period ot time, according
to the nature of the case ; nor did he, any more than Thales,
attribute anything to a divine mind in the production of aU
this activity of things. Anaximander left as his successor his

' "Sapiens," that is, a wise man, one who had attained to wisdom.

308 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

disciple Anaximenes, who attributed all the causes of things
to an infinite air. He neither denied nor ignored the existence
of gods, but, so far from believing that the air was made by
them, he held, on the contrary, tliat they sprang from the air.
Anaxagoras, however, who was his pupil, perceived that a
divine mind was the productive cause of all things which we
see, and said that all the various kinds of thinf,^s, according
to their several modes and species, were produced out of an
infinite matter consisting of homogeneous particles, but by the
efliciency of a divine mind. Diogenes, also, another pupil of
Anaximenes, said that a certain air was the original substance
of things out of which all things were produced, but that it
was possessed of a divine reason, without which nothing could
be produced from it. Anaxagoras was succeeded by his dis-
ciple Archelaus, who also thought that all things consisted of
homogeneous particles, of which each particular thing was
made, but that those particles were pervaded by a divine
mind, wliich perpetually energized all the eternal bodies,
namely, those particles, so that they are alternately united
and separated. Socrates, the master of Plato, is said to have
been the disciple of Archelaus ; and on Plato's account it is
that I have given this brief historical sketch of the whole
history of these schools.

3. Of the Socrat'ic pJiilosopJitj.

Socrates is said to have been the first who directed the
entire effort of philosophy to the correction and regulation of
manners, all who went before him having expended their
greatest efforts in the investigation of pliysical, that is, natural
phenomena. However, it seems to me that it cannot be
certainly discovered whether Socrates did this because lie was
wearied of obscure and uncertain thini^s, and so wished to
direct liis mind to the discovery of something manifest and
certain, wliicli was necessary in order to the obtaining of a
blessed life, — that one great object toward which the labour,
vigilance, and industry of all philosophers seem to have been
directed, — or whether (as some yet more favourable to him
suppose) he did it because he was unwilling that minds
defiled with earthly desires should essay to raise themselves
upward to divine things. For he saw that the causes of

BOOK VIII.] SOCRATES. 309

tilings were sought for by them, — which causes he believed to
be ultimately reducible to nothing else than the will of the
one true and supreme God, — and on this account he thought
they could only be comprehended by a purified mind ; and
therefore that all diligence ought to be given to the purifi-
cation of the life by good morals, in order that the mind,
delivered from the depressing weight of lusts, might raise
itself upward by its native vigour to eternal things, and
might, with purified understanding, contemplate that nature
which is incorporeal and unchangeable light, where live the
causes of all created natures. It is evident, however, that
he hunted out and pursued, with a wonderful pleasantness
of style and argument, and with a most pointed and insinu-
ating urbanity, the foolishness of ignorant men, who thought
that they knew this or that, — sometimes confessing his own
ignorance, and sometimes dissimulating his knowledge, even
in those very moral questions to which he seems to have
directed the whole force of his mind. And hence there arose
hostility against him, which ended in his being calumniously
impeached, and condemned to death. Afterwards, however,
that very city of the Athenians, which had publicly con-
demned him, did publicly bewail him, — the popular indigna-
tion having turned with such vehemence on his accusers, that
one of them perished by the violence of the multitude, whilst
the other only escaped a like punishment by voluntary and
perpetual exile.

Illustrious, therefore, both in his life and in his death,
Socrates left very many disciples of his philosophy, who
vied with one another in desire for proficiency in hand-
ling those moral questions which concern the chief good
{summum honum), the possession of which can make a man
blessed ; and because, in the disputations of Socrates, where
he raises all manner of questions, makes assertions, and
then demolishes them, it did not evidently appear what he
held to be the chief good, every one took from these dis-
putations what pleased him best, and every one placed the
final good^ in whatever it appeared to himself to consist.
Now, that which is called the final good is that at which,

' Finem boni.

310 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

when one has arrived, he is blessed. But so diverse were
the opinions held by those followers of Socrates concerning
this final good, that (a thing scarcely to be credited with
respect to the followers of one master) some placed the chief
good in pleasure, as Aristippus, others in virtue, as Antis-
thenes. Indeed, it were tedious to recount the various
opinions of various disciples.

4. Concerhiiig Plato, the chief among the disciples of Socrates, and his
threefold division of philosophy.

But, among the disciples of Socrates, Plato was the one who
shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others, and
who not unjustly eclipsed them all. By birth an Athenian
of honourable parentage, he far surpassed his fellow-disciples
in natural endowments, of which he was possessed in a won-
derful degree. Yet, deeming himself and the Socratic discipline
far from sufficient for bringing philosophy to perfection, he
travelled as extensively as he was able, going to every place
famed for tlie cultivation of any science of which he could
make himself master. Thus he learned from the Eg}T)tians
whatever they held and taught as important; and from Kgypt,
passing into those parts of Italy which were filled with the
fame of the Pythagoreans, he mastered, with the greatest
facility, and under the most eminent teachers, all the Italic
philosophy which was then in vogue. And, as he had a
peculiar love for his master Socrates, he made him the speaker
in all his dialogues, putting into his mouth whatever he had
learned, either from others, or from the efforts of his o\vn
powerful intellect, tempering even his moral disputations with
the grace and politeness of the Socratic style. And, as the
study of wisdom consists in action and contemplation, so that
one part of it may be called active, and the other contem-
plative,— the active part having reference to the conduct of Ufe,
that is, to the regulation of morals, and the contemplative part
to the investigation into the causes of nature and into pure
trutli, — Socrates is said to have excelled in the active part of
that study, while Pythagoras gave more attention to its con-
templative part, on which he brought to bear all the force of
his great intellect. To Plato is given the praise of having
perfected philosophy by combining both parts into one. He

BOOK VIII.] PLATO. 311

then divides it into three parts, — the first moral, which is
chiefly occupied with action; the second natural, of which the
object is contemplation ; and the third rational, which dis-
criminates between the true and the false. And though this
last is necessary both to action and contemplation, it is
contemplation, nevertheless, which lays peculiar claim to the
office of investigating the nature of truth. Thus this tripar-
tite division is not contrary to that which made the study of
wisdom to consist in action and contemplation. Now, as to
what Plato thought with respect to each of these parts, — that
is, what he believed to be the end of all actions, the cause of
all natures, and the light of all intelligences, — it would be a
question too long to discuss, and about which we ought not
to make any rash affirmation. For, as Plato liked and con-
stantly affected the well-known method of his master Socrates,
namely, that of dissimulating his knowledge or his opinions,
it is not easy to discover clearly what he himself thought on
various matters, any more than it is to discover what were
the real opinions of Socrates. We must, nevertheless, insert
into our work certain of those opinions which he expresses in
his writings, whether he himself uttered them, or narrates
them as expressed by others, and seems himself to approve
of, — opinions sometimes favourable to the true religion, which
our faith takes up and defends, and sometimes contrary to it,
as, for example, in the questions concerning the existence of
one God or of many, as it relates to the truly blessed life
which is to be after death. For those who are praised as
having most closely followed Plato, who is justly preferred to
all the other philosophers of the Gentiles, and who are said
to have manifested the greatest acuteness in understanding
him, do perhaps entertain such an idea of God as to admit
that in Him are to be found the cause of existence, the ulti-
mate reason for the understanding, and the end in reference
to which the whole life is to be regulated. Of which three
things, the first is understood to pertain to the natural, the
second to the rational, and the third to the moral part of
philosophy. For if man has been so created as to attain,
through that which is most excellent in him, to that which
excels all things, — that is, to the one true and absolutely good

312 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VHT.

God, without whom no nature exists, no doctrine instructs, no
exercise profits, — let Him be sought in whom all things are
secure to us, let Him be discovered in whom all truth becomes
certain to us, let Him be loved in whom all becomes right
to us.

5. lliai it is especially with the Platonists that we must carry on our disputa-
tions on matters of theology, their opinions being preferable to those of all
other philosophers.

If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates,
knows, loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through
fellowship with Him in His own blessedness, why discuss
with the other philosophers ? It is evident that none come
nearer to us than the Platonists. To them, therefore, let that
fabulous theology give place which delights the minds of men
with the crimes of the gods ; and that civil theology also, in
which impure demons, under the name of gods, have seduced
the peoples of the earth given up to earthly pleasures, desiring
to be honoured by the errors of men, and, by filling the minds
of their worshippers with impure desires, exciting them to
make the representation of their crimes one of the rites of
their worship, whilst they themselves found in the spectators
of these exhibitions a most pleasing spectacle, — a theology in
which, whatever was honourable in the temple, was defiled by
its mixture with the obscenity of the theatre, and whatever
was base in the theatre was vindicated by the abominations
of the temples. To these philosopliers also the interpretations
of Varro must give place, in which he explains the sacred rites
as having reference to heaven and earth, and to the seeds and
operations of perishable things ; for, in the first place, those
rites have not the signification which he would have men be-
lieve is attached to tliem, and therefore truth does not follow
him in his attempt so to interpret them ; and even if they
had this signification, still those things ought not to be wor-
shipped by the rational soul as its god which are placed below
it in the scale of nature, nor ought the soul to prefer to itself
as gods things to which the true God has given it tlie prefer-
ence. The same must be said of those writings pertaining to
the sacred rites, which Numa Pompilius took care to conceal
by causing them to be buried along with hiniselt*, and which.

BOOK VIII.] SUPERIOEITY OF PLATONISM. 313

when they were afterwards turned np by the plough, were
burned by order of the senate. And, to treat Numa with
all honour, let us mention as belonging to the same rank as
these writings that which Alexander of Macedon wrote to his
mother as communicated to him by Leo, an Egyptian high
priest. In this letter not only Picus and Faunus, and ^neas
and Romulus, or even Hercules and ^sculapius and Liber,
born of Semele, and the twin sons of Tyndareus, or any
other mortals who have been deified, but even the principal
gods themselves,^ to whom Cicero, in his Tusculan questions,^
alludes without mentioning their names, Jupiter, Juno,
Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many others whom Varro attempts
to identify with the parts or the elements of the world, are
shown to have been men. There is, as we have said, a simi-
larity between this case and that of Numa; for, the priest
being afraid because he had revealed a mystery, earnestly
begged of Alexander to command his mother to burn the letter
which conveyed these communications to her. Let these two
theologies, then, the fabulous and the civil, give place to the
Platonic philosophers, wdio have recognised the true God as
the author of all thin<::^s, the source of the lisfht of truth, and
•the bountiful bestower of all blessedness. And not these only,
but to these great acknowledgers of so great a God, those
philosophers must yield who, having their mind enslaved to
their body, supposed the principles of all things to be material ;
as Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was
water; Anaximenes, that it was air; the Stoics, that it was
fire ; Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that
is to say, of minute corpuscules ; and many others whom it is
needless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, simple
or compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies,
were the cause and principle of all things. For some of them
— as, for instance, the Epicureans — believed that living things
could originate from things without life ; others held that all
things living or without life spring from a living principle,
but that, nevertheless, all things, being material, spring from
a material principle. For the Stoics thought that fire, that
is, one of the four material elements of which this visible

^ Dii majorum gentium. 2 Book i. 13.

314 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VHI.

world is composed, was both living and intelligent, the maker
of the world and of all things contained in it, — that it was
in fact God. These and others like them have only been able
to suppose that whicli their liearts enslaved to sense have
vainly suggested to them. And yet they have within tliem-
selves something which they could not see : they represented
to themselves inwardly things which they had seen without,
even when they were not seeing them, but only thinking of
them. But this representation in thought is no longer a
body, but only the similitude of a body ; and that faculty of
the mind by which this similitude of a body is seen is neither
a body nor the similitude of a body ; and the faculty which
judges whether the representation is beautiful or ugly is
without doubt superior to the object judged of. This prin-
ciple is the understanding of man, the rational soul ; and it is
certainly not a body, since that similitude of a body which it
beholds and judges of is itself not a body. The soul is neither
earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire, of which four bodies, called
the four elements, we see that this world is composed. And
it the soul is not a body, how should God, its Creator, be a
body ? Let all those philosophers, then, give place, as we
have said, to the Platonists, and those also who have been
ashamed to say that God is a body, but yet have thought that
our souls are of the same nature as God. They have not been
staggered by the great changeableness of the soul, — an attri-
bute which it would be impious to ascribe to the divine nature,
— but they say it is the body which changes the soul, for in
itself it is unchangeable. As well might they say, " Flesh is
wounded by some body, for in itself it is invulnerable." In a
word, tliat wliich is unchangeable can be changed by nothing,
so that that which can be changed by the body cannot pro-
perly be said to be immutable.

C. Concerning the meaning of the Platonists in that part of philosophy called

physical.

These philosophers, then, whom we see not undeservedly
exalted above the rest in fame and glory, have seen that no
material body is God, and therefore they have transcended
all bodies in seeking for God. Tliey have seen that whatever
is changeable is not the most high God, and therefore they

BOOK VIII.] PHYSICAL THEOLOGY OF PLATONISM. 315

have transcended every soul and all changeable spirits in
seeking the supreme. They have seen also that, in every
changeable thing, the form which makes it that which it is,
whatever be its mode or nature, can only he through Him
who truly is, because He is unchangeable. And therefore,
whether we consider the whole body of the world, its figure,
qualities, and orderly movement, and also all the bodies
which are in it ; or whether we consider aU life, either that
which nourishes and maintains, as the life of trees, or that
which, besides this, has also sensation, as the life of beasts ;
or that which adds to aU these intelligence, as the life of
man ; or that which does not need the support of nutriment,
but only maintains, feels, understands, as the life of angels, —
aU can only he through Him who absolutely is. For to Him
it is not one thing to le, and another to live, as though He
could he, not living ; nor is it to Him one thing to live, and
another thing to understand, as though He could live, not
understanding ; nor is it to Him one thing to understand,
another thing to be blessed, as though He could understand
and not be blessed. But to Him to live, to understand, to
be blessed, are to he. They have understood, from this un-
changeableness and this simplicity, that all things must have
been made by Him, and that He could Himself have been
made by none. For they have considered that whatever is
is either body or life, and that life is something better than
body, and that the nature of body is sensible, and that of
life intelligible. Therefore they have preferred the intelligible
nature to the sensible. We mean by sensible things such
things as can be perceived by the sight and touch of the body ;
by intelligible things, such as can be understood by the sight
of the mind. For there is no corporeal beauty, whether in
the condition of a body, as figure, or in its movement, as in
music, of which it is not the mind that judges. But this
could never have been, had there not existed in the mind
itself a superior form of these things, without bulk, without
noise of voice, without space and time. But even in respect
of these things, had the mind not been mutable, it would not
have been possible for one to judge better than another with
regard to sensible forms. He who is clever judges better

316 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

than he who is slow, he who is skilled than he who is un-
skilful, he who is practised than lie who is unpractised ; and
the same person judges better after he has gained experience
than he did before. But tliat which is capable of more and
less is mutable ; whence able men, who have thought deeply
on these things, have gathered that the first form is not to
be found in those things whose form is changeable. Since,
therefore, they saw that body and mind might be more or
less beautifid in form, and tliat, if they wanted form, they
could have no existence, they saw that tliere is some exist-
ence in wdiich is the first form, unchangeable, and therefore
not admitting of degrees of comparison, and in that they most
rightly believed was the first principle of things, which was
not made, and by which all things were made. Therefore
that which is known of God He manifested to them when
His invisible things w^ere seen by them, being understood
by those tilings which have been made ; also His eternal
power and Godhead by whom all visible and temporal things
have been created.^ We have said enough upon that part of
tlieology wliich they call physical, that is, natural.

7. How much the Platonists are to be held as excelling other philosophers in
logic, i.e. rational philosophy.

Then, again, as far as regards the doctrine which treats of
that which they call logic, that is, rational philosophy, far be
it from us to compare them w4th those who attributed to
the bodily senses the faculty of discriminating truth, and
thought that all we learn is to be measured by tlieir un-
trustwortliy and fallacious rules. Such were the Epicureans,
and all of the same school Such also were the Stoics, who
ascribed to the bodily senses that expertness in disputation
which they so ardently love, called by them dialectic, assert-
in*' tliat from the senses the mind conceives the notions

o

{evvoiai) of those things whicli tliey explicate by definition.
And hence is developed the whole plan and connection of
their learning and teaching. I often wonder, witli respect to
this, how they can say that none are beautiful but the wise ;
for by what bodily sense have they perceived that beauty,
by what eyes of the flesh have they seen wisdom's comeli-
^ Horn. i. 19, 20.

BOOK VIIL] ethics OF PLATONIS^L 317

ness of form ? Those, however, whom we justly rank before
all others, have distinguished those things which are con-
ceived by the mind from those which are perceived by the
senses, neither taldng away from the senses anything to
which they are competent, nor attributing to them anything
beyond their competency. And the light of our understand-
ings, by which all things are learned by us, they have affirmed
to be that selfsame God by whom all things were made.

8. That the Platonists hold the first ranh in moral philosophy also.
The remaining part of philosophy is morals, or what is
called by the Greeks rjOLKif}, in which is discussed the question
concerning the chief good, — that Avhich will leave us nothing
further to seek in order to be blessed, if only we make all
our actions refer to it, and seek it not for the sake of some-
thing else, but for its own sake. Therefore it is called the
end, because we wish other things on account of it, but itself
only for its own sake. This beatific good, therefore, according
to some, comes to a man from the body, according to others,
from the mind, and, according to others, from both together.
For they saw that man himself consists of soul and body;
and therefore they believed that from either of these two,
or from both together, their well-being must proceed, consist-
ing in a certain final good, which could render them blessed,
and to which they might refer all their actions, not requiring
anything ulterior to which to refer that good itself. This is
why those who have added a third kind of good things, which
they call extrinsic, — as honour, glory, wealth, and the like, —
have not regarded them as part of the final good, that is, to be
sought after for their own sake, but as things which are to be
sought for the sake of something else, affirming that this kind
of good is • good to the good, and evil to the evil Where-
fore, whether they have sought the good of man from the
mind or from the body, or from both together, it is still only
from man they have supposed that it must be sought. But
they who have sought it from the body have sought it from
the inferior part of man ; they who have sought it from the
mind, from the superior part ; and they who have sought it
from both, from the whole man. Whether, therefore, they

318 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

have souglit it from any part, or from the whole man, still
they have only sought it from man ; nor have these differ-
ences, being three, given rise only to three dissentient sects
of philosopliers, but to many. For diverse philosophers have
held diverse opinions, both concerning the good of the body,
and the good of the mind, and the good of both together.
Let, therefore, all these give place to those philosophers who
have not affirmed that a man is blessed by the enjoyment of
the body, or by the enjoyment of the mind, but by the enjoy-
ment of God, — enjoying llim, however, not as the mind does
the body or itself, or as one friend enjoys another, but as the
eye enjoys light, if, indeed, we may draw any comparison
between these things. But what the nature of this compari-
son is, will, if God help me, be shown in another place, to the
best of my ability. At present, it is sufficient to mention
that Plato determined the final good to be to live according
to virtue, and affirmed that he only can attain to virtue who
knows and imitates God, — which knowledge and imitation are
the only cause of blessedness. Therefore he did not doubt
that to philosophize is to love God, whose nature is incor-
poreal Whence it certainly follows that the student of
wisdom, that is, the philosopher, will then become blessed
when he shall have begun to enjoy God. For though he is
not necessarily blessed who enjoys tliat which he loves (for
many are miserable by loving that which ought not to be
loved, and still more miserable when they enjoy it), neverthe-
less no one is blessed who does not enjoy that which he loves.
For even they who love things wliich ouglit not to be loved
do not count themselves blessed by loving merely, but by
enjoying them. Who, then, but tlie most miserable will deny
that he is blessed, who enjoys that which he loves, and loves
the true and highest good ? T.ut tlie true and highest good,
according to Plato, is God, and tlierefore he would call him
a philosopher who loves God; for pliilosophy is directed to the
obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed
in the enjoyment of God.

9. Conceniing that philosophy ichich has come nearest to the Christian faith.

Whatever pliilosophers, therefore, tliought concerning the
supreme God, tliat 11^ is both the maker of all created things,

BOOK Vm.] PLATONISM NEAREST CHRISTIANITY. 319

the light by which things are known, and the good in reference
to which things are to be done ; that we have in Him the
first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happi-
ness of life, — whether these philosophers may be more suitably
called Platonists, or whether they may give some other name
to their sect ; whether, we say, that only the chief men of the
Ionic school, such as Plato himself, and they who have well
understood him, have thought thus ; or whether we also in-
clude the Italic school, on account of Pythagoras and the
Pythagoreans, and all who may have held like opinions ; and,
lastly, whether also we include all who have been held wise
men and philosophers among all nations who are discovered to
have seen and taught this, be they Atlantics, Libyans, Egyptians,
Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Gauls, Spaniards, or
of other nations, — we prefer these to all other philosophers,
and confess that they approach nearest to us.

10. That the excellency of the Christian religion is above all the science of
philosophers.

For although a Christian man instructed only in ecclesias-
tical literature may perhaps be ignorant of the very name of
Platonists, and may not even know that there have existed
two schools of philosophers speaking the Greek tongue, to
wit, the Ionic and Italic, he is nevertheless not so deaf with
respect to human affairs, as not to know that philosophers
profess the study, and even the possession, of wisdom. He
is on his guard, however, with respect to those who philo-
sophize according to the elements of this world, not according
to God, by whom the world itself was made ; for he is warned
by the precept of the apostle, and faithfully hears what has
been said, " Beware that no one deceive you through philo-
sophy and vain deceit, according to the elements of the world."^
Then, that he may not suppose that all philosophers are such
as do this, he hears the same apostle say concerning certain
of them, " Because that which is known of God is manifest
among them, for God has manifested it to them. For His
invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things which are made, also

^ Col. ii. 8.

320 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

His eternal power and Godhead."^ And, when speaking to
the Athenians, after having spoken a miglity thing concerning
God, wliicli few are able to understand, " In Him we live, and
move, and have our being,"^ he goes on to say, "As certain
also of your own have said." He knows well, too, to be on
his guard against even these philosophers in their errors. For
where it has been said by him, " that God has manifested to
them by those things which are made His invisible things, that
they might be seen by the understanding," tliere it has also
been said that they did not rightly worship God Himself,
because they paid divine honours, which are due to Him
alone, to other things also to wliich they ought not to have
paid them, — " because, knowing God, they glorified Him not as
God ; neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagi-
nations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
themselves to be wdse, they became fools, and changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image
of corruptible man, and ot birds, and fourfooted beasts, and
creeping things ;" ^ — where the apostle would have us
imderstand him as meaning the Romans, and Greeks, and
Egyptians, who gloried in the name of wisdom ; but con-
cerning this we will dispute with them afterwards. With
respect, however, to that wherein tliey agree with us we
prefer them to all others, namely, concerning the one God,
the author of tliis universe, who is not only above every body,
being incorporeal, but also above all souls, being incorruptible
— our principle, our light, our good. And though the
Christian man, being ignorant of tlieir writings, does not use
in disputation words which he has not learned, — not calling
that part of philosophy natural (wliicli is the Latin term), or
physical (wliich is tlie Greek one), which treats of the investi-
gation of nature ; or that part rational, or logical, wliich deals
with the question how truth may be discovered ; or that part
moral, or ethical, which concerns morals, and shows how good
is to be sought, and evil to be shunned, — he is not, therefore,
ignorant that it is from the one true and supremely good God
that we have that nature in which we are made in the image
of God, and that doctrine by which we know Him and our-

» Rom. i. 19, 20. » Acts xvii. 28. = Rom. i. 21-23.

BOOK VIII.] now THIS IS ACCOUNTED FOR. 321

selves, and that grace through which, by cleaving to Him, we
are blessed. This, therefore, is the cause why we prefer these
to all the others, because, whilst other philosophers have worn
out their minds and powers in seeking the causes of things,
and endeavouring to discover the right mode of learning and
of living, these, by knowing God, have found where resides the
cause by which the universe has been constituted, and the
light by which truth is to be discovered, and the fountain at
w^hich felicity is to be drunk. All philosophers, then, who
have had these thoughts concerning God, whether Platonists
or others, agree with us. But we have thought it better to
plead our cause with the Platonists, because their writings are
better known. For the Greeks, whose tongue holds the highest
place among the languages of the Gentiles, are loud in their
praises of these writings ; and the Latins, taken with their
excellence, or their renown, have studied them more heartily
than other \vritings, and, by translating them into our tongue,
have given them greater celebrity and notoriety.

11. How Plato has been able to approach so nearhj to Christian knowledge.

Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder
when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concern-
ing God, in which they recognise considerable agreement with
the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this,
that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jere-
miah, or, whilst travelling in the same country, had read the
prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed
in certain of my writings.^ But a careful calculation of dates,
contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was born
about a hundred years after the time in which Jeremiah pro-
phesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are found to
have been about seventy years from his death to that time
when Ptolemy, Idng of Egypt, requested the prophetic scrip-
tures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea,
and committed them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the
Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that
voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who
was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures

' De Dodrina Christiana, ii. 43. Conip. Retract, ii. 4, 2.
VOL. -L X

322 TIIE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK YITI.

whicli had not yet been translated into the Greek language, of
which he was a master, unless, indeed, we say that, as he
was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied
those writings througli an interpreter, as he did those of the
Egyptians, — not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the
facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy
in return for munificent acts of kindness,^ though fear of his
kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but
learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents
by means of conversation. "What warrants this supposition is
the opening verses of Genesis : " In the beginning God made
the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and
without order ; and darkness was over the abyss : and the
Spirit of God moved over the waters."^ For in the Timceus,
when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God
first united earth and fire ; from which it is evident that he
assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain
resemblance to the statement, " In the beginning God made
heaven and earth." Plato next speaks of those two inter-
mediary elements, water and air, by which the other two
extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united ;
from which circumstance he is thought to have so understood
the words, " The Spirit of God moved over the watere." For,
not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by
those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought
that tlie four elements are spoken of in that place, because
tlie air also is called spirit.^ Then, as to Plato's saying that
the pliilosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more
conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking
thing in this connection, and that whicli most of all inclines
me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant
of tliose writings, is the answer wliicli was given to the ques-
tion elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God
were conveyed to him by the angel ; for, when he asked what
was the name of that God who was commanding him to go
and deliver th(». Hebrew people out of Eg}7)t, this answer was

' Liberating Jewish slaves, and sending gifts to the temple. See Josephus,
Ant. xii. 2.

'^ Gen. i. 1, 2. 'Spiritua.

BOOK VIII.] POLYTHEISM OF PLATONISTS. 323

given : " I am who am ; and thou shalt say to the children of
Israel, He who is sent me unto you ;"^ as though compared
with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those
thinfrs which have been created mutable are not, — a truth
which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently commended.
And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be
found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in
that book where it is said, " I am who am ; and thou shalt
say to the children of Israel, Wlw is sent me unto you."

12. That even the Platonists, though they say these things concerning the one
true God, nevertheless thought that sacred rites were to he jyerformed in
honour of many gods.

But we need not determine from what source he learned
these things, — whether it was from the books of the ancients
who preceded him, or, as is more likely, from the words of
the apostle : " Because that which is known of God has been
manifested among them, for God hath manifested it to them.
For His invisible things from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by those things which have
been made, also His eternal power and Godhead."^ From
whatever source he may have derived this knowledge, then, I
think I have made it sufficiently plain that I have not chosen
the Platonic philosophers undeservedly as the parties with
whom to discuss ; because the question we have just taken
up concerns the natural theology, — the question, namely,
whether sacred rites are to be performed to one God, or to
many, for the sake of the happiness which is to be after death.
I have specially chosen them because their juster thoughts
concerning the one God who made heaven and earth, have
made them illustrious among philosophers. This has given
them such superiority to all others in the judgment of pos-
terity, that, though Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, a man of
eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to Plato, yet far superior
to many in that respect, had founded the Peripatetic sect, — so
called because they were in the habit of walking about during
their disputations, — and though he had, through the greatness
of his fame, gathered very many disciples into his school, even
during the life of his master ; and though Plato at his death

» Ex. iii. 14. 2 Horn. i. 20.

324 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

was succeeded in his school, which was called the Academy,
by Speusippus, his sister's son, and Xenocrates, his beloved
disciple, who, together with their successors, were called from
this name of the school. Academics ; nevertheless the most
illustrious recent philosophers, who have chosen to follow Plato,
have been unwilling to be called Peripatetics, or Academics,
but have preferred the name of Platonists. Among these
were the renowned Plotinus, lambliclius, and Porphyry, who
were Greeks, and the African Apuleius, who was learned both
in the Greek and Latin toni^ues. All these, however, and the
rest who were of the same school, and also Plato himself,
thought that sacred rites ought to be performed in honour of
many gods.

13. Concerning the opinion of Plato, according to tcJiich he defined the gods
as beings entirely good and the friends of virtue.

Therefore, although in many other important respects they
differ from us, nevertheless wdth respect to this particular
point of difference, which I have just stated, as it is one of
great moment, and the question on hand concerns it, I will
first ask them to what gods they tliink that sacred rites are
to be performed, — to the good or to the bad, or to both the
good and the bad ? But we have the opinion of Plato affirm-
ing that all the gods are good, and that there is not one of the
gods bad. It follows, therefore, tliat these are to be performed
to the good, for then they are performed to gods ; for if they
are not good, neither are they gods. Now, if this be the case
(for what else ouglit we to believe concerning the gods ?), cer-
tainly it explodes the opinion that tlie bad gods are to be
propitiated by sacred rites in order that they may not harm
us, but the good gods are to be invoked in order that they
may assist us. For there are no bad gods, and it is to the
good that, as they say, the due honour of such rites is to
be paid. Of what character, tlien, are those gods who love
scenic displays, even demanding tliat a place be given them
among divine things, and tliat tliey be exhibited in tlieir
lionour ? The power of these gods proves that tliey exist,
but tlieir liking sucli things proves that they are bad. For it
is well known what Plato's opinion was concerning scenic
plays. He thinks that the poets themselves, because tliey

BOOK VIII.] INCONSISTENCY OF PLATONISTS. 325

liave composed songs so unworthy of the majesty and good-
ness of the gods, ought to be banished from the state. Of
what character, therefore, are those gods who contend w^ith
Plato himself about those scenic plays ? He does not sufter
the gods to be defamed by false crimes ; the gods command
those same crimes to be celebrated in their own honour.

In fine, when they ordered tliese plays to be inaugurated,
they not only demanded base things, but also did cruel things,
taking from Titus Latinius his son, and sending a disease
upon him because he had refused to obey them, which they
removed when he had fulfilled their commands. Plato, how-
ever, bad though they were, did not think they were to be
feared ; but, holding to his opinion with the utmost firmness
and constancy, does not hesitate to remove from a well-
ordered state all the sacrilegious follies of the poets, with
which these gods are delighted because they themselves are
impure. But Labeo places this same Plato (as I have men-
tioned already in the second book^) among the demi-gods.
Now Labeo thinks that the bad deities are to be propitiated
with bloody victims, and by fasts accompanied with the same,
but the good deities with plays, and all other things which
are associated with joy fulness. How comes it, then, that the
demi-god Plato so persistently dares to take away those plea-
sures, because he deems them base, not from the demi-gods
but from the gods, and these the good gods ? And, moreover,
those very gods themselves do certainly refute the opinion of
Labeo, for they showed themselves in the case of Latinius to
be not only wanton and sportive, but also cruel and terrible.
Let the Platonists, therefore, explain these things to us, since,
following the opinion of their master, they think that all the
gods are good and honourable, and friendly to the virtues of
the wise, holding it unlawful to think otherwise concerning
any of the gods. We will explain it, say they. Let us then
attentively listen to them.

14. OJ the opinion oftJiose who have said that rational sorils are of three kinds,
to wit, those oJ the celestial gods, those oJ the aerial demons, and those of
terrestrial men.

There is, say they, a threefold division of all animals en-
1 Ch. 14.

32G THE CITY OF GOD. [bOOK VIII.

dowed with a rational soul, namely, into gods, men, and demons.
The gods occupy the loftiest region, men the lowest, the
demons the middle region. For the abode of the gods is
heaven, that of men the earth, that of the demons the air.
As the dignity of their regions is diverse, so also is that of
their natures ; therefore the gods are better than men and
demons. Men have been placed below the gods and demons,
both in respect of the order of the regions they inhabit, and
the difference of their merits. The demons, therefore, who
hold the middle place, as they are inferior to the gods, than
whom they inhabit a lower region, so they are superior to
men, than whom tliey inhabit a loftier one. For they have
immortality of body in common w^ith the gods, but passions of
the mind in common with men. On which account, say they,
it is not wonderful that they are delighted with the obsceni-
ties of the theatre, and the fictions of the poets, since they are
also subject to human passions, from which the gods are far
removed, and to which they are altogether strangers. "Whence
we conclude that it was not the gods, who are all good and
highly exalted, that Plato deprived of the pleasure of theatric
plays, by reprobating and prohibiting the fictions of the poets,
but the demons.

Of these things many have wTitten : among others Apuleius,
the Platonist of Madaura, who composed a whole work on the
subject, entitled, Concerning the God of Socrates. He there
discusses and explains of wliat kind that deity was who at-
tended on Socrates, a sort ot familiar, by whom it is said he
was admonislied to desist from any action which would not
turn out to his advantage. He asserts most distinctly, and
proves at great length, tliat it was not a god but a demon ;
and he discusses with great diligence the opinion of Plato
concerning the lofty estate of the gods, the lowly estate of men,
and the middle estate of demons. Tliose things being so,
how did Plato dare to take away, if not from the gods, whom
he removed from all Iniman contagion, certainly from the
demons, all the pleasures of the theatre, by expelling the poets
from the state ? Evidently in this way he wished to admonish
the human soul, although still confined in these moribund
members, to despise the shameful commands of the demons.

BOOK VIIL] APULEIUS ON SOCRATES' DEMON. 32?

and to detest their impurity, and to choose rather the splen-
dour of virtue. But if Plato showed himself virtuous in
answering and prohibiting these things, then certainly it was
shameful of the demons to command them. Therefore either
Apuleius is wrong, and Socrates' familiar did not belong to
this class of deities, or Plato held contradictory opinions, now
honouring the demons, now removing from the well-regulated
state the things in which they delighted, or Socrates is not to
be congratulated on the friendship of the demon, ot which
Apuleius was so ashamed that he entitled his book On the
God of Socrates, whilst according to the tenor of his discus-
sion, wherein he so diligently and at such length distinguishes
gods from demons, he ought not to have entitled it. Concern-
ing the God, but Concerning the Demon of Socrates. But he
preferred to put this into the discussion itself rather than into
the title of his book. For, through the sound doctrine which
has illuminated human society, all, or almost all men have
such a horror at the name of demons, that every one who,
before reading the dissertation of Apuleius, which sets forth
the dignity of demons, should have read the title of the book,
On the Demon of Socrates, w^ould certainly have thought that
the author was not a sane man. But what did even Apuleius
find to praise in the demons, except subtlety and strength of
body and a higher place of habitation ? For when he spoke
generally concerning their manners, he said nothing that was
good, but very much that was bad. Finally, no one, when he
has read that book, wonders that they desired to have even
the obscenity of the stage among divine things, or that, wish-
ing to be thought gods, they should be delighted with the
crimes of the gods, or that all those sacred solemnities, whose
obscenity occasions laughter, and whose shameful cruelty causes
horror, should be in agreement with their passions.

15. That (lie demons are not better than men because of their aerial bodies,
or on account of their superior place oj abode.

Wherefore let not the mind truly religious, and submitted
to the true God, suppose that demons are better than men,
because they have better bodies. Otherwise it must put
many beasts before itself which are superior to us both in
acuteness of the senses, in ease and quickness of movement.

328 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

in strength and in long-continued vigour of body. AVliat
man can equal the eagle or the vulture in strength of vision ?
Who can equal the dog in acuteness of smell ? Who can
equal the liare, the stag, and all the birds in swiftness ? "\Mio
can equal in strength the lion or the elephant ? Wlio can
equal in length of life the serpents, which are affirmed to
put off old age along with tlieir skin, and to return to youth
again ? But as we are better than all these by the posses-
sion of reason and understanding, so we ought also to be better
than the demons by living good and virtuous lives. For
divine providence gave to them bodies of a better quality
than ours, that that in which we excel them might in this
way be commended to us as deserving to be far more cared
for than the body, and that we should learn to despise the
bodily excellence of the demons compared with goodness of
life, in respect of wliich we are better tlian they, knowing tliat
we too shall have immortality of body, — not an immortality
tortured by eternal punishment, but that which is consequent
on purity ol soul.

But now, as regards loftiness of place, it is altogether ridi-
culous to be so influenced by the fact that the demons inhabit
the air, and we tlie earth, as to think that on tliat account
they are to be put before us ; for in this way we put all the
birds before ourselves. But the birds, when tliey are weary
witli flying, or require to repair their bodies with food, come
back to tlie eartli to rest or to feed, which the demons, they
say, do not. Are they, therefore, inclined to say that the
birds are superior to us, and the demons superior to tlie birds ?
But if it be madness to think so, there is no reason why we
should tliink that, on account of tlieir inhabiting a loftier
element, tlie demons have a claim to our religious submission.
But as it is really the case that the birds of the air are not
only not put before us who dwell on the earth, but are even
subjected to us on account of the dignity of the rational soul
which is in us, so also it is the case that the demons, though
they are aerial, are not better than we who are terrestrial
because the air is higher than the earth, but, on the contrary,
men are to be put before demons because their despair is not
to be compared to the hope of pious men. Even that law of

BOOK VIII.] APULEIUS ON DEMONS. 329

Plato's, according to which he mutually orders and arranges
the four elements, inserting between the two extreme elements
— namely, fire, which is in the highest degree mobile, and the
immoveable earth — the two middle ones, air and water, that
by how much the air is higher up than the water, and the fire
than the air, by so much also are the waters higher than
the earth, — tliis law, I say, sufficiently admonishes us not to
estimate the merits of animated creatures according to the
grades of the elements. And Apuleius himself says that man
is a terrestrial animal in common with the rest, who is never-
theless to be put far before aquatic animals, though Plato puts
the waters themselves before the land. By this he would
have us understand that the same order is not to be observed
when the question concerns the merits of animals, though it
seems to be the true one in the gradation of bodies ; for it
appears to be possible that a soul of a higher order may in-
habit a body of a lower, and a soul of a lower order a body
of a higher.

16. What Apuleius the Platonist thought concerning the manners and
actions of demons.

The same Apuleius, when speaking concerning the manners
of demons, said that they are agitated with the same pertur-
bations of mind as men ; that they are provoked by injuries,
propitiated by services and by gifts, rejoice in honours, are
delighted with a variety of sacred rites, and are annoyed if
any of them be neglected. Among other things, he also says
that on them depend the divinations of augurs, soothsayers,
and prophets, and the revelations of dreams ; and that from
them also are the miracles of the magicians. But, when
giving a brief definition of them, he says, " Demons are of an
animal nature, passive in soul, rational in mind, aerial in body,
eternal in time." " Of which five things, the three first are
com^mon to them and us, the fourth peculiar to themselves,
and the fifth common to them with the gods." ' But I see
that they have in common with the gods two of the first things,
which they have in common with us. For he says that the
gods also are animals ; and when he is assigning to every
order of beings its own element, he places us among the other
^ De Deo Socratis.

330 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIIT.

terrestrial animals which live and feel upon the eartL Wliere-
fore, if the demons are animals as to genus, this is common to
them, not only "svith men, but also with the gods and with
beasts ; if they are rational as to their mind, this is common
to them with the gods and with men ; if they are eternal in
time, this is common to tliem with the gods only ; if they are
passive as to their soul, this is common to them with men
only ; if tliey are aerial in body, in this they are alone. There-
fore it is no great tiling for them to be of an animal nature,
for so also are the beasts ; in being rational as to mind, they
are not above ourselves, for so are we also ; and as to their
being eternal as to time, what is the advantage of that if
they are not blessed ? for better is temporal happiness than
eternal misery. Again, as to their being passive in soul, how
are they in this respect above us, since we also are so, but
would not have been so had we not been miserable ? Also,
as to their being aerial in body, how much value is to be set
on tliat, since a soul of any kind whatsoever is to be set above
every body ? and therefore religious worship, which ought to
be rendered from the soul, is by no means due to that thing
which is inferior to the souL Moreover, if he had, among
those things which he says belong to demons, enumerated
virtue, wisdom, happiness, and affirmed that they have those
things in common with the gods, and, like them, eternally, he
would assuredly have attributed to them something greatly to
be desired, and much to be prized. And even in that case it
would not have been our duty to worship them like God on
account of these tilings, but rather to worsliip Him from whom
we know they had received them. But how much less are
they really worthy of divine honour, — those aerial animals who
are only rational that tliey may be capable of misery, passive
that they may be actually miserable, and eternal that it may
be impossible for them to end their misery !

17. Whether it w proper that men should trorship those s2nrUs from xchost
vices it is necessary that they be freed.

AMiercfore, to omit other things, and confine our attention
to that which he says is common to the demons with us, let us
ask this question : If all the four elements are full of their own
animals, the fire and the air of iumiortal, and the water and the

BOOK VIII.] APULEIUS ON DEMONS. 331

earth of mortal ones, why are the souls of demons agitated by
the whirlwinds and tempests of passions ? — for the Greek word
7ra^o9 means perturbation, whence he chose to call the demons
" passive in soul," because the word passion, which is derived
from 7ra6o<;, signified a commotion of the mind contrary to
reason. Why, then, are these things in the minds of demons
which are not in beasts ? For if anything of this kind appears
in beasts, it is not perturbation, because it is not contrary to
reason, of which they are devoid. ISTow it is foolishness or
misery which is the cause of these perturbations in the case of
men, for we are not yet blessed in the possession of that per-
fection of wisdom which is promised to us at last, when we
shall be set free from our present mortality. But the gods,
they say, are free from these perturbations, because they are
not only eternal, but also blessed ; for they also have the same
kind of rational souls, but most pure from all spot and plague.
Wherefore, if the gods are free from perturbation because they
are blessed, not miserable animals, and the beasts are free
from them because they are animals which are capable neither
of blessedness nor misery, it remains that the demons, like
men, are subject to perturbations because they are not blessed
but miserable animals. What folly, therefore, or rather what
madness, to submit ourselves through any sentiment of religion
to demons, when it belongs to the true religion to deliver us
from that depravity which makes us like to them ! For
Apuleius himself, although he is very sparing toward them,
and thinks they are worthy of divine honours, is nevertheless
compelled to confess that they are subject to anger ; and the
true religion commands us not to be moved with anger, but
rather to resist it. The demons are won over by gifts ; and
the true religion commands us to favour no one on account of
gifts received. The demons are flattered by honours ; but the
true religion commands us by no means to be moved by such
things. The demons are haters of some men and lovers of
others, not in consequence of a prudent and calm judgment,
but because of what he calls their " passive soul ;" whereas the
true religion commands us to love even our enemies. Lastly,
the true religion commands us to put away all disquietude
of heart, and agitation of mind, and also all commotions and

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

tempests of the soul, which Apuloius asserts to be continually
swelling and surging in the souls of demons. Why, therefore,
except tlirough foolishness and miserable error, shouldst thou
humble thyself to worship a being to whom thou desirest to
be unlike in thy life ? And why shouldst tliou pay religious
homage to him whom thou art unwilling to imitate, when it
is the highest duty of religion to imitate llim wliom thou wor-
shippest ?

18. What kind of relhjion thai is which teaches that men ought to employ the
advocacy oj demons in order to be recommended to the favour of the good
gods.

In vain, therefore, have Apuleius, and they who think with
him, conferred on the demons the honour of placing tliem in
the air, between the ethereal heavens and the earth, that they
may carry to the gods the prayers of men, to men the answers of
the gods ; for Plato held, they say, that no god has intercourse
with man. They who believe these things have thought it un-
becoming that men should have intercourse with the gods, and
the gods with men, but a befitting thing that the demons
should have intercourse with both gods and men, presenting to
tlie gods the petitions of men, and conveying to men what the
gods have granted ; so that a chaste man, and one who is a
stranger to the crimes of the magic arts, must use as patrons,
through whom the gods may be induced to hear him, demons
who love these crimes, although tlie very tact of his not loving
them ought to have recommended him to them as one who
deserved to be listened to with greater readiness and willing-
ness on their part. They love tlie abominations of the stage,
which chastity does not love. They love, in tlie sorceries of
the magicians, " a thousand arts oj injliding harm"^ which in-
nocence does not love. Yet both chastity and innocence, if
they wish to obtain imything from the gods, will not be able
to do so by their own merits, except their enemies net as
mediators on their behalf. Apuleius need not attempt to
justify the fictions of tlie poets, and the mockeries of the stage.
If human modesty can act so faithlessly towards itself as not
only to love shameful things, but even to think that they are

» Virgil, ^';j. 7. 338.

BOOK VIII.] MAGIC ARTS. 333

pleasing to the divinity, we can cite on the other side their
own highest authority and teacher, Plato.

19. Of the impiety of the magic art, which is dependent on the assistance
of malign spirits.

Moreover, against those magic arts, concerning which some
men, exceedingly wretched and exceedingly impious, delight
to boast, may not public opinion itself be brought forward as
a witness ? For why are those arts so severely punished by
the laws, if they are the works of deities who ought to be
worshipped ? Shall it be said that the Christians have ordained
those laws by which magic arts are punished ? With what
other meaning, except that these sorceries are without doubt
pernicious to the human race, did the most illustrious poet
say,

" By heaven, I swear, and your dear life,
Unwillingly these arms I wield,
And take, to meet the coming strife,
Enchantment's sword and shield."^

And that also which he says in another place concerning
magic arts,

" I've seen him to another place transport the standing com,"^

has reference to the fact that the fruits of one field are said to
be transferred to another by these arts which this pestiferous
and accursed doctrine teaches. Does not Cicero inform us that,
among the laws of the Twelve Tables, that is, the most ancient
laws of the Eomans, there was a law written which appointed
a punishment to be inflicted on him who should do this ?^
Lastly, was it before Christian judges that Apuleius himself
was accused of magic arts ?* Had he known these arts to be
divine and pious, and congruous with the works of divine
power, he ought not only to have confessed, but also to have
professed them, rather blaming the laws by which these things
were prohibited and pronounced worthy of condemnation, while
they ought to have been held worthy of admiration and respect.

1 Virgil, ^n. 4. 492, 493. 2 yirgil, Ec. 8. 99.

' Pliny {Hist. Nat. xxviii. 2) and others quote the law as running: "Qui
fruges incantasit, qui malum carmen incantasit. . . . neu alienam segetem
pelexeris."

* Before Claudius, the prefect of Africa, a heathen.

334 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

For by so doing, either he would have persuaded the judges to
adopt his own opinion, or, if tliey had shown their partiality
for unjust laws, and condemned him to death notwitlistanding
his praising and commending such things, tlie demons would
have bestowed on his soul such rewards as he deserved, who,
in order to proclaim and set forth their divine works, had not
feared tlie loss of his human life. As our martyrs, when that
religion was charged on them as a crime, by which they knew
they were made safe and most glorious throughout eternity,
did not choose, by denying it, to escape temporal punishments,
but rather by confessing, professing, and proclaiming it, by
enduring all things for it with fidelity and fortitude, and by
dying fur it with pious calnmess, put to shame the law by
which that religion was prohibited, and caused its revocation.
But there is extant a most copious and eloquent oration of
this Platonic philosopher, in which he defends himself against
the charge of practising these arts, affirming that he is wholly
a stranger to them, and only wishing to show his innocence
by denying such things as cannot be innocently committed.
But all the miracles of the magicians, who he thinks are justly
deserving of condemnation, are performed according to the
teaching and by the power of demons, \\liy, then, does he
think that they ought to be honoured ? For he asserts that
they are necessary, in order to present our prayers to the gods,
and yet their works are such as we must shun if we wish our
prayers to reach the true God. Again, I ask, what kind of
prayers of men does ho suppose are presented to the good
gods by the demons ? If magical prayers, they will have none
such ; if lawful prayers, they will not receive them through
such beings. But if a sinner who is penitent pour out prayers,
especially if he has committed any crime of sorcery, does he
receive pardon through the intercession of those demons by
whose instigation and help he has fallen into the sin he mourns ?
or do the demons themselves, in order that they may merit
pardon for the penitent, first become penitents because they
liave deceived them ? This no one ever said concerning tlie
demons ; for liad this been the case, they would never have
dared to seek for themselves divine lionours. For how should
they do so who desired by penitence to obtain the gi*ace of

BOOK VIIL] mediation OF DEMONS. 335

pardon, seeing that such detestable pride could not exist along
with a humility worthy of pardon ?

20. Whether ive are to believe that the good gods are more willing to have
intercourse with demons than with men.

But does any urgent and most pressing cause compel the
demons to mediate between the gods and men, that they may
offer the prayers of men, and bring back the answers from the
gods ? and if so, what, pray, is that cause, what is that so
great necessity ? Because, say they, no god has intercourse
with man. Most admirable holiness of God, which has no
intercourse with a supplicating man, and yet has intercourse
with an arrogant demon ! which has no intercourse with a
penitent man, and yet has intercourse with a deceiving demon I
which has no intercourse with a man fleeing for refuge to the
divine nature, and yet has intercourse with a demon feigning
divinity ! which has no intercourse with a man seeking pardon,
and yet has intercourse mth a demon persuading to wicked-
ness ! which has no intercourse with a man expelling the
poets by means of philosophical writings from a well-regu-
lated state, and yet has intercourse with a demon requesting
from the princes and priests of a state the theatrical perform-
ance of the mockeries of the poets ! which has no intercourse
with the man who prohibits the ascribing of crime to the
gods, and yet has intercourse with a demon who takes delight
in the fictitious representation of their crimes ! which has no
intercourse with a man punishing the crimes of the magicians
by just laws, and yet has intercourse with a demon teaching
and practising magical arts ! which has no intercourse with a
man shunning the imitation of a demon, and yet has inter-
course with a demon lying in wait for the deception of a
man !

21. Whether the gods use the demons as messengers and interpreters, and whether
they are deceived by them willingly, or without their own knoivledge.

But herein, no doubt, lies the great necessity for this
absurdity, so unworthy of the gods, that the ethereal gods,
who are concerned about human affairs, would not know what
terrestrial men were doing unless the aerial demons should
bring them intelligence, because the ether is suspended far
away from the earth and far above it, but the air is contigu-

33 G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIIT.

ous both to the ether and to the earth. 0 admirable wisdom !
what else do these men think concerning the gods who, they
say, are all in the highest degree good, but that they are
concerned about human affairs, lest they should seem un-
worthy of worship, whilst, on the other hand, from the
distance between the elements, they are ignorant of ten-es-
trial things ? It is on this account that they have supposed
the demons to be necessary as agents, through whom the
gods may inform themselves with respect to human affairs,
and through whom, when necessary, they may succour men ;
and it is on account of this office that tlie demons themselves
have been held as deserving of worsliip. If this be the case,
then a demon is better known by these good gods through
nearness of body, than a man is by goodness of mind. 0
mournful necessity ! or shall I not rather say detestable and
vain error, that I may not impute vanity to tlie divine nature !
For if the gods can, with their minds free from the hindrance
of bodies, see our mind, tliey do not need the demons as
messengers from our mind to them ; but if the ethereal gods,
by means of their bodies, perceive the corporeal indices of
minds, as the countenance, speech, motion, and*thence under-
stand what the demons tell them, then it is also possible that
tliey may be deceived by the falsehoods of demons. Moreover,
if the divinity of the gods cannot be deceived by the demons,
neither can it be ignorant of our actions. But I would they
would tell me whether the demons have informed the gods
that the fictions of the poets concerning the crimes of the
gods displease Plato, concealing the pleasure which they them-
selves take in them ; or whether they have concealed both, and
have preferred that the gods should be ignorant with respect
to this whole matter, or have told both, as well the pious
prudence of Plato with respect to the gods as their ovsti lust,
wliicli is injurious to tlie gods ; or whether they have concealed
Plato's opinion, according to which he was unwilling that the
gods should be defamed with falsely alleged crimes through
tlie impious licence of the poets, whilst they have not been
ashamed nor afraid to make known their own wickedness,
which make them love theatrical plays, in which the infamous
deeds of the gods are celebrated. Let them choose which

BOOK VIII.] PLATO AND THE DEMONS. 337

they will of these four alternatives, and let them consider how
much evil any one of them would require them to think of the
gods. Tor if they choose the first, they must then confess that
it was not possible for the good gods to dwell with the good
Plato, though he sought to prohibit things injurious to them_,
whilst they dwelt with evil demons, who exulted in their
injuries; and this because they suppose that the good gods
can only know a good man, placed at so great a distance from
them, through the mediation of evil demons, whom they could
know on account of their nearness to themselves.^ If they
shall choose the second, and shall say that both these things
are concealed by the demons, so that the gods are wholly
ignorant both of Plato's most religious law and the sacri-
legious pleasure of the demons, what, in that case, can the
gods know to any profit with respect to human affairs through
these mediating demons, when they do not know those things
which are decreed, through the piety of good men, for the
honour of the good gods against the lust of evil demons ?
But if they shall choose the third, and reply that these inter-
mediary demons have communicated, not only the opinion
of Plato, which prohibited wrongs to be done to the gods,
but also their own deliofht in these wronf]fS, I would ask if
such a communication is not rather an insult ? Now the
gods, hearing both and knowing both, not only permit the
approach of those malign demons, who desire and do things
contrary to the dignity of the gods and the religion of Plato,
but also, through these wicked demons, who are near to them,
send good things to the good Plato, who is far away from
them ; for they inhabit such a place in the concatenated
series of the elements, that they can come into contact with
those by whom they are accused, but not with him by whom
they are defended, — knowing the truth on both sides, but not
being able to change the weight of the air and the earth.
There remains the fourth supposition; but it is worse than the
rest. For who will suffer it to be said that the demons have
made known the calumnious fictions of the poets concerning
the immortal gods, and also the disgraceful mockeries of the
theatres, and their own most ardent lust after, and most sweet

^ Another reading, "whom they could not know, though near to themselves."
VOL. L Y

338 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK TJU.

pleasure in these thinj^s, whilst tlicy liave concealed from
them tliat Plato, with tlie gravity of a philosopher, gave it as
his opinion that all these tilings ought to be removed from a
well-regulated republic ; so that the good gods are now com-
pelled, througli such messengers, to know the evil doings of
the most wicked beings, that is to say, of the messengers
themselves, and are not allowed to know the good deeds of
the philosopliers, tliougli tlie former are for the injury, but
these latter for the lionour of the gods themselves ?

22. That we viust, notwithstanding the opinion of Apuleius, reject the worship

of demons.

None of these four alternatives, tlien, is to be chosen ; for
we dare not suppose such unbecoming things concerning the
gods as the adoption of any one of them would lead us to
tliink. It remains, therefore, that no credence whatever is to
be given to the opinion of Apuleius and the other philosophers
of the ^ame school, namely, that the demons act as messengers
and interpreters between the gods and men to carry our peti-
tions from us to the gods, and to bring back to us the help of
the gods. On the contrary, we must believe them to be spirits
most eager to inflict harm, utterly alien from righteousness,
swollen with pride, pale with envy, subtle in deceit ; who dwell
indeed in this air as in a prison, in keeping with their own
character, because, cast down from the height of the higher
heaven, they have been condemned to dwell in this element
as the just reward of irretrievable transgi-ession. But, thougli
the air is situated above the earth and the waters, they are
not on that account superior in merit to men, who, though
they do not surpass them as far as their earthly bodies are
concerned, do nevertheless far excel them througli piety of
mind, — tliey having made choice of the true God as their
helper. Over many, however, who are manifestly unworthy of
participation in tlie true religion, they tyrannize as over cap-
tives whom they have subdued, — the greatest part of whom
they have persuaded of their divinity by wonderful and lying
signs, consi.sting cither of deeds or of predictions. Some,
nevertheless, who have more attentively and diligently con-
sidered their vices, they have not been able to persuade that
they are gods, and so have feigned themselves to be messengers

BOOK VIII.] HERMES TRISMEGISTUS. 339

between the gods and men. Some, indeed, have thought that
not even this latter honour ought to be acknowledged as
belonging to them, not believing that they were gods, because
they saw that they were wicked, whereas the gods, according
to their view, are all good. Nevertheless they dared not say
that they were wholly unworthy of all divine honour, for
fear of offending the multitude, by whom, through inveterate
superstition, the demons were served by the performance of
many rites, and the erection of many temples.

23. What Hermes Trismegistus tJiought concerning idolatry, and from what
source he knew that the sujyerstitions of Egypt were to be abolished.

The Egyptian Hermes, whom they call Trismegistus, had
a different oj^inion concerning those demons. Apuleius,
indeed, denies that they are gods ; but when he says that
they ho]d a middle place between the gods and men, so that
they seem to be necessary for men as mediators between them
and the gods, he does not distinguish between the worshij)
due to them and the religious homage due to the supernal
gods. This Egyptian, however, says that there are some gods
made by the supreme God, and some made by men. Any
one who hears this, as I have stated it, no doubt supposes
that it has reference to images, because they are the works
of the hands of men ; but he asserts that visible and tangible
images are, as it were, only the bodies of the gods, and that
there dwell in them certain spirits, which have been invited
to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm, or
to fulfil the desires of those by whom divine honours and
services are rendered to them. To unite, therefore, by a
certain art, those invisible spirits to visible and material
things, so as to make, as it were, animated bodies, de-
dicated and given up to those spirits who inhabit them, —
this, he says, is to make gods, adding that men have re-
ceived this great and wonderful power. I will give the
words of this Egyptian as they have been translated into
our tongue : " And, since we have undertaken to discourse
concerning the relationship and fellowship between men
and the gods, know, 0 iEsculapius, the power and strength
of man. As the Lord and Father, or that which is highest,
even God, is the maker of the celestial gods, so man is the

;40 THE CITY OF HOD. [dOOK VITT.

maker of the gods wlio are in the temples, content to dwell
near to men." ^ And a little after he says, " Thus humanity,
always mindful of its nature and origin, perseveres in the
imitation of divinity; and as the Lord and Father made
eternal gods, that they should he like Himself, so humanity
fashioned its own gods according to the likeness of its own
countenance." AVhen this iEsculapius, to whom especially
he was speaking, had answered him, and had said, " Dost thou
mean the statues, 0 Trismegistus?" — " Yes, the statues," replied
he, " however unbelieving thou art, 0 ^sculapius, — the statues,
animated, and full of sensation and spirit, and who do such
great and wonderful things, — the statues, prescient of future
things, and foretelling them by lot, by propliet, by dreams, and
many other things, who bring diseases on men and cure
them again, giving them joy or sorrow according to their
merits. Dost thou not know, 0 ^sculapius, that Egypt is an
image of heaven, or, more truly, a translation and descent of aU
things wdiich are ordered and transacted there, — that it is, in
truth, if we may say so, to be the temple of the whole world ?
And yet, as it becomes the prudent man to know all things
beforehand, ye ought not to be ignorant of this, that there is
a time coming wdien it shall appear that the Eg}'ptians have
all in vain, with pious mind, and with most scrupulous dili-
gence, waited on the divinity, and when all their holy worship
shall come to nought, and be found to be in vain."

Hermes then follows out at great length the statements of
this passage, in which he seems to predict the present time, in
which the Christian religion is overthrowing all lying figments
with a vehemence and liberty proportioned to its superior truth
and holiness, in order that the grace of the true Saviour may
deliver men from those gods which man has made, and sub-
ject them to that God by whom man was made. But when
Hermes predicts these things, he speaks as one who is a
friend to these same mockeries of demons, and does not
clearly express the name of Christ. On the contrary, he
deplores, as if it had already taken place, the future abolition
of those things by the observance of which there was main-

' Those qiiotitions are from a diftlo;;uc between Hormos and iEsculapins,
which is said to liavc bciu traublated into Latin by Apulcius.

BOOK VIIL] HERMES CRITICISED. 341

tained in Egypt a resemblance of heaven, — he bears witness to
Christianity by a kind of mournful prophecy. Now it was
with reference to such that the apostle said, that " knowing
God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful,
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened ; professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the
likeness of the image of corruptible man,"^ and so on, for the
whole passage is too long to quote. For Hermes makes many
such statements agreeable to the truth concerning the one
true God who fashioned this world. And I know not how
he has become so bewildered by that " darkening of the heart"
as to stumble into the expression of a desire that men should
always continue in subjection to those gods which he con-
fesses to be made by men, and to bewail their future removal ;
as if there could be anything more wretched than mankind
tyrannized over by the work of his own hands, since man,
by worshipping the works of his own hands, may more easily
cease to be man, than the works of his hands can, through his
worship of them, become gods. For it can sooner happen
that man, who has received an honourable position, may,
through lack of understanding, become comparable to the
beasts, than that the works of man may become preferable to
the work of God, made in His own image, that is, to man
himself Wherefore deservedly is man left to fall away from
Him who made him, when he prefers to himseK that which
he himself has made.

For these vain, deceitful, pernicious, sacrilegious things did
the Egyptian Hermes sorrow, because he knew that the time
was coming when they should be removed. But his sorrow
was as impudently expressed as his knowledge was imprudently
obtained ; for it was not the Holy Spirit who revealed these
things to him, as He had done to the holy prophets, who, lore-
seeing these things, said with exultation, " If a man shall make
gods, lo, they are no gods ;"^ and in another place, "And it shall
come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut ofl
the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more
be remembered."^ But the holy Isaiah prophesies expressly

1 Rom. i. 21. « Jer. xvi. 20. » Zecli. xiii. 2.

342 THE CITY OF COD. . [book viii.

concerning Egypt in reference to this matter, saying, " And the
idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and their heart
shall be overcome in them,".* and other things to the same eflect.
And with the prophet are to be classed those who rejoiced that
that which they knew was to come had actually come, — as
Simeon, or Anna, who immediately recognised Jesus when He
was born, or Elisabeth, who in the Spirit recognised Him
when He was conceived, or Peter, who said by the revelation
of the Father, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God."*''
But to this Egyptian those spirits indicated the time of their
own destruction, who also, when the Lord was present in the
flesh, said with trembling, " Art Thou come hither to destroy
us before the time ? "^ meaning by destruction before the time,
either that very destruction which they expected to come,
but which they did not think would come so suddenly as it
appeared to have done, or only that destruction which con-
sisted in their being brought into contempt by being made
known. And, indeed, this was a destruction before the time,
that is, before the time of judgment, when they are to be
punished with eternal damnation, together with all men who
are implicated in their wickedness, as the true religion de-
clares, which neither errs nor leads into error ; for it is not
like him wdio, blown hither and thither by every wind of
doctrine, and mixing true things with things which are false,
bewails as about to perish a religion which he afterwards
confesses to be error.

24. How Hermes openly confessed the error of his fore fathers, the coming
destruction of which lie nevertheless beicailed.

After a long interval, Hermes again comes back to the
subject of the gods which men have made, saying as follows:
" But enough on this subject. Let us return to man and to
reason, that divine gift on account of which man has been
called a rational animal. For the things which have been
said concerning man, wonderful though they are, are less
wonderful than those which have been said concerning reason.
For man to discover the divine nature, and to make it, sur-
])assos the wonder of all otlier wonderful things. Because,
therefore, our forefatliers erred very far with respect to the

^ Isa, xi.\. 1. « Matt. xvi. 16. s ^[,^tt. viii. 29.

BOOK VIII.] FOREBODINGS OF HERMES. 343

knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and through want
of attention to their worship and service, they invented this
art of making gods ; and this art once invented, they associated
with it a suitable virtue borrowed from universal nature, and,
being incapable of making souls, they evoked those of demons
or of angels, and united them with these holy images and
divine mysteries, in order that through these souls the images
might have power to do good or harm to men." I know not
whether the demons themselves could have been made, even
by adjuration, to confess as he has confessed in these words :
" Because our forefathers erred very far with respect to the
knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and through want
of attention to their worship and service, they invented the
art of making gods." Does he say that it was a moderate
degree of error which resulted in their discovery of the art
of making gods, or was he content to say " they erred ? " 'No ;
he must needs add " very far," and say, " They erred very far.''
It w^as this great error and incredulity, then, of their fore-
fathers who did not attend to the worship and service of the
gods, which was the origin of the art of making gods. And
yet this wise man grieves over the ruin of this art at some
future time, as if it were a divine religion. Is he not verily
compelled by divine influence, on the one hand, to reveal the
past error of his forefathers, and by a diabolical influence, on
the other hand, to bewail the future punishment of demons ?
For if their forefathers, by erring very far with respect to
the knowledge of the gods, through incredulity and aversion
of mind from their worship and service, invented the art of
making gods, what wonder is it that all that is done by this
detestable art, which is opposed to the divine religion, should
be taken away by that religion, when truth corrects error,
faith refutes incredulity, and conversion rectifies aversion ?

For if he had only said, without mentioning the cause, that
his forefathers had discovered the art of makins: Cfods, it would
have been our duty, if we paid any regard to what is right
and pious, to consider and to see that they could never have
attained to this art if they had not erred from the truth, if
they had believed those things which are worthy of God, if
they had attended to divine worship and service. However,

344 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

if we alone should say that the causes of this art were to be
found in the great error and incredulity of men, and aversion
of the mind erring from and unfaithful to divine religion, the
impudence of those wlio resist the truth were in some way
to be borne witli ; hut when he who admires in man, above
all other things, this power which it has been granted liini to
practise, and sorrows because a time is coming when all those
figments of gods invented by men shall even be commanded
by tlie laws to be taken away, — when even this man con-
fesses nevertheless, and explains the causes which led to the
discovery of this art, saying that their ancestors, through great
error and incredulity, and through not attending to the wor-
ship and service of the gods, invented tliis art of making gods,
— what ought we to say, or rather to do, but to give to the
Lord our God all the thanks we are able, because He has
taken away those things by causes the contrary of those
which led to their institution ? For that which tlie pre-
valence of error instituted, the way of truth took away ; tliat
which incredulity instituted, faith took away ; that which
aversion from divine worship and service instituted, conver-
sion to the one true and holy God took away. Nor was tliis
the case only in Egypt, for which country alone tlie spirit of
the demons lamented in Hermes, but in all the earth, which
sings to tlie Lord a new song,^ as the truly holy and truly
prophetic Scriptures have predicted, in which it is written,
" Sing unto the Lord a new song ; sing unto the Lord, all the
eartli." For the title of this psalm is, " When the house
was built after the captivity." For a house is being built
to the Lord in all the earth, even the city of God, which
is the holy Church, after that captivity in which demons
lield captive those men who, through faith in God, became
living stones in the house. For although man made gods, it
did not follow that he who made them was not held captive
by them, when, by worehipping them, he was drawn into
fellowship with them, — into the fellowship not of stolid idols,
but of cunning demons ; for what are idols but what they
are represented to be in the same Scriptures, " They have eyes,
but they do not see,"'* and, though artistically fashioned, are

^ IV xcvi. 1. ' Ps. c.w. 5, etc.

BOOK YIIL] forebodings OF HERMES. 345

still without life and sensation ? But unclean spirits, asso-
ciated through that wicked art with these same idols, have
miserably taken captive the souls of their worshippers, by
bringing them down into fellowship with themselves. Whence
the apostle says, "We know that an idol is nothing, but
those things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to
demons, and not to God ; and I would not ye should have
fellowship with demons."^ After this captivity, therefore, in
which men were held by malign demons, the house of God
is being built in all the earth ; whence the title of that psalm
in which it is said, " Sing unto the Lord a new song ; sing
unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His
name ; declare well His salvation from day to day. Declare
His glory among the nations, among all people His wonderful
things. For great is the Lord, and much to be praised : He is
terrible above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are
demons : but the Lord made the heavens." ^

Wherefore he who sorrowed because a time was coming when
the worship of idols should be abolished, and the domination of
the demons over those who worshipped them, wished, under the
influence of a demon, that that captivity should always continue,
at the cessation of which that psalm celebrates the building of
the house of the Lord in all the earth. Hermes foretold these
things with grief, the prophet with joyfulness ; and because
the Spirit is victorious who sang these things through the
ancient prophets, even Hermes himself was compelled in a
wonderful manner to confess, that those very things which
he wished not to be removed, and at the prospect of whose
removal he was sorrowful, had been instituted, not by prudent,
faithful, and religious, but by erring and unbelieving men,
averse to the worship and service of the gods. And although
he calls them gods, nevertheless, when he says that they were
made by such men as we certainly ought not to be, he shows,
whether he will or not, that they are not to be worshipped by
those who do not resemble these image-makers, that is, by pru-
dent, faithful, and religious men, at the same time also making
it manifest that the very men who made them involved them-
selves in the worship of those as gods who were not gods.
' 1 Cor. X. 19, 20. 2 Pa. xcvi. 1-5.

y

34G THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

For true is tlie saying of the prophet, " If a man make gods,
lo, they are no gods."^ Such gods, therefore, acknowledged
by such worshippers and made Ly such men, did Hermes call
" gods made by men," that is to say, demons, through some
art of I know not what description, bound by the chains of
their own lusts to images. lUit, nevertheless, he did not
agree with that opinion of the Platonic Apuleius, of which
we have already shown the incongruity and absurdity, namely,
that they were interpreters and intercessors between the gods
whom God made, and men whom the same God made, brinirinrr
to God the prayers of men, and from God the gifts given in
answer to these prayers. For it is exceedingly stupid to
believe that gods whom men have made have more influence
with gods whom God has made than men themselves have,
whom the very same God has made. And consider, too, that
it is a demon which, bound by a man to an image by means
of an impious art, has been made a god, but a god to such a
man only, not to every man. AVhat kind of god, therefore, is
that which no man would make but one erring, incredulous,
and averse to the true God ? Moreover, if the demons which
are worshipped in the temples, being introduced by some kind
of strange art into images, that is, into visible representations
of themselves, by those men who by this art made gods when
they were straying away from, and w^re averse to the worship
and service of the gods, — if, T say, those demons are neitlier
mediators nor interpreters between men and the gods, both
on account of tlieir own most wicked and base manners, and
because men, though emng, incredulous, and averse from the
worship and service of the gods, are nevertheless beyond
doubt better than the demons whom they themselves have
evoked, then it remains to be affirmed that what power they
possess they possess as demons, doing harm by bestowing
pretended benefits, — harm all tlie greater for the deception, — or
else openly and undisguiscdly doing evil to men. They cannot,
however, do anything of this kind unless wliere they are per-
mitted by the deep and secret providence of God, and tlien
only so far as they are permitted. Wlien, however, tliey are
permitted, it is not because they, being midway between

1 Jer. xvi. 20.

BOOK VIII.] TIIINCxS COMMON TO ANGELS AND MEN. 347

men and the gods, have through the friendship of the gods
great power over men ; for these demons cannot possibly be
friends to the good gods who dwell in the holy and heavenly
habitation, by whom we mean holy angels and rational crea-
tures, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or
powers, from whom they are as far separated in disposition
and character as vice is distant from virtue, wickedness from
goodness.

25. Concerning those tilings v;7iic7i may be common to the holy angels
and to men.

Wherefore we must by no means seek, through the supposed
mediation of demons, to avail ourselves of the benevolence or
beneficence of the gods, or rather of the good angels, but
through resembling them in the possession of a good will,
through which we are with them, and live with them, and
worship with them the same God, although we cannot see
them with the eyes of our flesh. But it is not in locality
we are distant from them, but in merit of life, caused by our
miserable unlikeness to them in will, and by the weakness
of our character; for the mere fact of our dwelling on earth
under the conditions of life in the flesh does not prevent our
fellowship with them. It is only prevented when we, in the
impurity of our hearts, mind earthly things. But in this
present time, while we are being healed that we may eventu-
ally be as they are, we are brought near to them by faith, if
by their assistance we believe that He who is their blessed-
ness is also ours.

26. That all the religion of the j^agans has reference to dead men.

It is certainly a remarkable thing how this Egyptian, when
expressing his grief that a time was coming when those things
would be taken away from Egypt, which he confesses to have
been invented by men erring, incredulous, and averse to the
service of divine religion, says, among other things, " Then
shall that land, the most holy place of shrines and temples,
be full of sepulchres and dead men," as if, in sooth, if these
things were not taken away, men would not die ! as if dead
bodies could be buried elsewhere than in the ground ! as if,
as time advanced, the number of sepulchres must not neces-
sarily increase in proportion to the increase of the number of

348 THE riTY OF GOD. [BOOK VIIT.

the dead ! But they who are of a perverse mind, and opposed
to US, suppose that what he grieves for is that tlie memorials
of our martyrs were to succeed to their temples and shrines,
in order, forsooth, tliat they may have grounds for thinking
that gods were worshipped by the pagans in temples, but that
dead men are worshipped by us in sepulchres. For with such
blindness do impious men, as it were, stumble over mountains,
and wiU not see the things which strike their own eyes, that
they do not attend to the fact that in all the literature of the
pagans there are not found any, or scarcely any gods, who
have not been men, to whom, when dead, divine honours have
been paid. I wiU not enlarge on the fact that Yarro says
that all dead men are thought by them to be gods Manes, and
proves it by those sacred rites which are performed in honour
of almost all the dead, among wliich he mentions funeral
games, considering this the very highest proof of divinity,
because games are only wont to be celebrated in honour of
divinities. Hermes himself, of wliom we are now treatinc:, in
that same book in wliich, as if foretelling future things, he
says with sorrow, " Then shall that land, the most holy place
of shrines and temples, be full of sepulchres and dead men,"
testifies that the gods of Egypt wxre dead men. For, having
said that their forefathers, erring very far with respect to the
knowledge of the gods, incredulous and inattentive to the
divine worship and service, invented the art of making gods,
with which art, when invented, they associated the appropriate
virtue which is inherent in universal nature, and by mixing
up that virtue with this art, they called forth the souls of
demons or of angels (for they could not make souls), and
caused them to take possession of, or associate themselves
with holy images and divine mysteries, in order that through
these souls the images might liave power to do good or harm
to men ; — having said thi.^, he goes on, as it were, to prove
it by illustrations, saying, " Thy grandsire, 0 iEsculapius, the
first discoverer of medicine, to whom a temple was consecrated
in a mountain of Libya, near to the shore of the crocodiles, in
which temple lies his earthly man, that is, his body, — for the
better part of him, or rather the whole of him, if the whole
man is in tlic intelligent life, went back to heaven, — affords

BOOK VIII.] WORSHIP OF DEAD MEN. 349

even now by his divinity all those helps to infirm men, which
formerly he was wont to afford to them by the art of medi-
cine." He says, therefore, that a dead man was worsliipped
as a god in that place where he had his sepulchre. He
deceives men by a falsehood, for the man "went back to
heaven." Then he adds, "Does not Hermes, who was my
grandsire, and whose name I bear, abiding in the country
which is called by his name, help and preserve all mortals
who come to him from every quarter?" For this elder
Hermes, that is. Mercury, who, he says, was his grandsire, is
said to be buried in Hermopolis, that is, in the city called
by his name ; so here are two gods whom he affirms to
have been men, ^sculapius and Mercury. IsTow concerning
^sculapius, both the Greeks and the Latins think the same
thing ; but as to Mercury, there are many who do not think
that he was formerly a mortal, though Hermes testifies that
he was his grandsire. But are these two different individuals
who were called by the same name ? I will not dispute much
whether they are different individuals or not. It is sufficient
to know that this Mercury of whom Hermes speaks is, as well
as ^sculapius, a god who once was a man, according to the
testimony of this same Trismegistus, esteemed so great by his
countrymen, and also the grandson of Mercury himself

Hermes goes on to say, " But do we know how many good
things Isis, the wife of Osiris, bestows when she is propitious,
and what great opposition she can offer when enraged ?"
Then, in order to show that there were gods made by men
through this art, he goes on to say, " For it is easy for earthly
and mundane gods to be angry, being made and composed by
men out of either nature ;" thus giving us to understand that
he believed that demons were formerly the souls of dead men,
which, as he says, by means of a certain art invented by men
very far in error, incredulous, and irreligious, were caused to
take possession of images, because they who made such gods
were not able to make souls. When, therefore, he says " either
nature," he means soul and body, — the demon being the soul,
and the image the body. What, then, becomes of that mourn-
ful complaint, that the land of Egypt, the most holy place
of shrines and temples, was to be full of sepulchres and

350 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK VIII.

(lead men ? Verily, the fallacious spirit, by whose inspiration
Hermes spoke these thin^^s, was compelled to confess through
him that even already that land was full of sepulchres and
of dead men, whom they were worshipping as gods. But it
was the grief of the demons which was expressing itself
through his mouth, who were sorrowing on account of the
punishments which were about to fall upon them at the
tombs of the martyi's. For in many such places they are
tortured and compelled to confess, and are cast out of the
bodies of men, of which they had taken possession.

27. Concerning the nature of the honour which tJie Chrinduns pay to
their martyrs.

But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain
priests, rites, and sacrifices for these same martyrs ; for they
are not our gods, but their God is our God Certainly we
honour their reliquaries, as the memorials of holy men of God
who strove for the truth even to the death of their bodies,
that the true religion might be made known, and false and
fictitious religions exposed. For if there were some before
them who thought that these religions were really false and
fictitious, they were afraid to give expression to their convic-
tions. But who ever heard a priest of the faithful, standing
at an altar built for the honour and worship of God over the
holy body of some mart}T, say in the prayers, I offer to thee
a sacrifice, 0 Peter, or 0 Paul, or 0 Cyprian ? for it is to
Cxod that sacrifices are offered at their tombs, — the God who
made them both men and martyrs, and associated them with
holy angels in celestial honour ; and the reason why we pay
such honours to their memory is, that by so doing we may
both give thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by
recalling them afrejh to remembrance, may stir ourselves \i\)
to imitate them by seeking to obtain like crowns and palms,
calling to our help that same God on whom they called.
Therefore, whatever honours the religious may pay in the
places of the mart^TS, they are but honours rendered to their
memory,^ not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as
to gods. And even such as bring thither food, — which, indeed,
is not done by the better Christians, and in most places of
* Ornaiucalu memoriuium.

I

BOOK VIII.] HONOUR PAID TO CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 351

the world is not done at all, — do so in order that it may be
sanctified to them through the merits of the martyrs, in the
name of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting the food
and offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten,
or to be in part bestowed upon the needy.-^ But he who
knows the one sacrifice of Christians, which is the sacrifice
offered in those places, also knows that these are not sacrifices
offered to the martyrs. It is, then, neither with divine honours
nor with human crimes, by which they worship their gods,
that we honour our martyrs ; neither do we offer sacrifices to
them, or convert the crimes of the gods into their sacred rites.
For let those who will and can read the letter of Alexander
to his mother Olympias, in which he tells the things which
were revealed to him by the priest Leon, and let those who
have read it recall to memory what it contains, that they
may see what great abominations have been handed down to
memory, not by poets, but by the mystic writings of the
Egyptians, concerning the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, and
the parents of both, all of whom, according to these writings,
were royal personages. Isis, when sacrificing to her parents,
is said to have discovered a crop of barley, of which she
brought some ears to the king her husband, and his councillor
Mercurius, and hence they identify her with Ceres. Those
who read the letter may there see what was the character of
those people to whom when dead sacred rites were instituted
as to gods, and what those deeds of theirs were which furnished
the occasion for these rites. Let them not once dare to com-
pare in any respect those people, though they hold them to be
gods, to our holy martyrs, though we do not hold them to be
gods. For we do not ordain priests and offer sacrifices to our
martyrs, as they do to their dead men, for that would be in-
congruous, undue, and unlawful, such being due only to God ;
and thus we do not delight them with their own crimes, or
with such shameful plays as those in which the crimes of
the gods are celebrated, which are either real crimes com-
mitted by them at a time when they were men, or else, if
they never were men, fictitious crimes invented for the plea-
sure of noxious demons. The god of Socrates, if he had a

^ Comp. The Confessions, vi. 2.

352 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK VIII.

god, cannot have belonged to tliis class of demons. But
perliaps they who wished to excel in this art of making gods,
imposed a god of this sort on a man who was a stranger to,
and innocent of any connection with that art. What need we
say more ? No one wlio is even moderately wise imagines
that demons are to be worshipped on account of the blessed
life which is to be after death. But perhaps they will say
that all the gods are good, but tliat of the demons some are
bad and some good, and that it is the good who 9,re to be
worshipped, in order that through them we may attain to the
eternally blessed life. To tlie examination of tliis o2)inion we
will devote the following book

BOOK IX.] GOOD AND BAD DEMONS. 353

BOOK NINTH.

ARGUMENT.

HAVING IN THE PBECEDING BOOK SHOWN THAT THE WORSHIP OE DEMONS MUST
BE ABJURED, SINCE THEY IN A THOUSAND WAYS PROCLAIM THEMSELVES TO
BE WICKED SPIRITS, AUGUSTINE IN THIS BOOK MEETS THOSE WHO ALLEGE
A DISTINCTION AMONG DEMONS, SOME BEING EVIL, WHILE OTHERS AKE
GOOD ; AND, HAVING EXPLODED THIS DISTINCTION, HE PROVES THAT TO NO
DEMON, BUT TO CHRIST ALONE, BELONGS THE OFFICE OF PROVIDING MEN
WITH ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS.

1. The point at luluch the discussion has arrived, and what remains to he
handled.

SOME have advanced the opinion that there are both good
and bad gods ; but some, thinking more respectfully of
the gods, have attributed to them so much honour and praise
as to preclude the supposition of any god being wicked. But
those who have maintained that there are wicked gods as well
as good ones have included the demons under the name
"gods," and sometimes, though more rarely, have called the
gods demons ; so that they admit that Jupiter, whom they
make the king and head of all the rest, is called a demon by
Homer. ^ Those, on the other hand, who maintain that the
gods are all good, and far more excellent than the men who
are justly called good, are moved by the actions of the demons,
which they can neither deny nor impute to the gods whose
goodness they affirm, to distinguish between gods and demons ;
so that, whenever they find anything offensive in the deeds or
sentiments by which unseen spirits manifest their power, they
believe this to proceed not from the gods, but from the demons.
At the same time they believe that, as no god can hold dii^ect
intercourse with men, these demons hold the position of media-
tors, ascending with prayers, and returning with gifts. This
is the opinion of the Platonists, the ablest and most esteemed
of their philosophers, with whom we therefore chose to debate
this question, — whether the worship of a number of gods is of

^ See Plutarch, on the Cessation of Oracles.
VOL. I. Z

354 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

any service towards obtaining blessedness in the future life.
And tliis is the reason why, in the preceding book, we have
inquired how the demons, who take pleasure in such things
as good and wise men loathe and execrate, in the sacrilegious
and immoral fictions which the poets have -written, not of men,
but of the gods themselves, and in the wicked and criminal
violence of magical arts, can be regarded as more nearly related
and more friendly to the gods than men are, and can mediate
between good men and the good gods ; and it has been demon-
strated that this is absolutely impossible.

2. Whrthrr amonrj tlip demomt, ivffr'ior to the (jodft, there are any good spirits
under lohose guardianship the human soul might reach true blessedness.

This book, then, ought, according to the promise made in
the end of the preceding one, to contain a discussion, not of
the difference which exists among the gods, who, according to
the Platonists, are all good, nor of the difference between gods
and demons, the former of whom they separate by a wide
interval from men, while the latter are placed intermediately
between the gods and men, but of the difference, since they
make one, among the demons themselves. This we shall
discuss so far as it bears on our theme. It has been the
common and usual belief that some of the demons are bad,
others good; and this opinion, whether it be that of the
Platonists or any other sect, must by no means be passed over
in silence, lest some one suppose he ought to cultivate the
good demons in order that by their mediation he may be
accepted by the gods, all of whom he believes to be good, and
that he may live with them after death ; whereas he would
thus be ensnared in the toils of wicked spirits, and would
wander far from the true God, with whom alone, and in
whom alono, tin; human soul, that is to say, the soul that is
rational and intellectual, is blessed.

3. IVhnt Apnlcius attrihults to the demons, to tr/iom, though he does not deny
them reason, he does not ascribe virtue.

Wliat, then, is tlie difference between good and evil demons?
For the Tlatonist Apnlcius, in a treatise on this whole subject,*

' The De Deo Socratis.

BOOK IX.] DEMONS SUBJECT TO EMOTIONS. 355

while he says a great deal about their aerial bodies, has not
a word to say of the spiritual virtues with which, if they
were good, they must have been endowed. Not a word has
he said, then, of that which could give them happiness ; but
proof of their misery he has given, acknowledging that their
mind, by which they rank as reasonable beings, is not only
not imbued and fortified with virtue so as to resist all un-
reasonable passions, but that it is somehow agitated with
tempestuous emotions, and is thus on a level with the mind
of foolish men. His own words are : " It is this class of
demons the poets refer to, when, without serious error, they
feign that the gods hate and love individuals among men,
prospering and ennobling some, and opposing and distressing
others. Therefore pity, indignation, grief, joy, every human
emotion is experienced by the demons, with the same mental
disturbance, and the same tide of feelincj and thouf:jht. These
turmoils and tempests banish them far from the tranquillity of
the celestial gods." Can there be any doubt that in these
words it is not some inferior part of their spiritual nature, but
the very mind by which the demons hold their rank as rational
beings, which he says is tossed with passion like a stormy sea ?
They cannot, then, be compared even to wise men, who with
undisturbed mind resist these perturbations to which they
are exposed in this life, and from which human infirmity is
never exempt, and who do not yield themselves to approve
of or perpetrate anything which might deflect them from
the path of wisdom and law of rectitude. They resemble in
character, though not in bodily appearance, wicked and foolish
men. I might indeed say they are worse, inasmuch as they
have grown old in iniquity, and incorrigible by punishment.
Their mind, as Apuleius says, is a sea tossed with tempest,
having no rallying point of truth or virtue in their soul from
which they can resist their turbulent and depraved emotions.

4. The opinion of the Peripatetics and Stoics about mental emotions.

Among the philosophers there are two opinions about these
mental emotions, which the Greeks call irdOr), while some of
our own writers, as Cicero, call them perturbations,^ some

1 De Fin. iii. 20 ; Tusc. Disp. iii. 4.

356 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

affections, and some, to render tlie Greek word more accu-
rat<ily, passions. Some say that even the wise man is subject
to these perturbations, though moderated and controlled by
reason, which imposes laws upon them, and so restrains them
within necessary bounds. Tliis is the opinion of the Tlatonists
and Aristotelians ; for Aristotle was -Plato's disciple, and the
founder of the Peripatetic school. But others, as the Stoics,
are of opinion that the wise man is not subject to these per-
turbations. But Cicero, in his book De Finibus, shows that
the Stoics are here at variance with the Platonists and Peri-
patetics rather in words than in reality ; for the Stoics decline
to apply the term " goods" to external and bodily advantages,^
because they reckon that the only good is virtue, the art of
living well, and this exists only in the mind. The other
philosophers, again, use the simple and customary phraseology,
and do not scruple to call these things goods, though in com-
parison of virtue, which guides our life, they are little and of
small esteem. And thus it is obvious that, whether these
outward things are called goods or advantages, they are held
in the same estimation by both parties, and that in this
matter the Stoics are pleasing themselves merely with a novel
phraseology. It seems, then, to me that in this question,
whether the wise man is subject to mental passions, or wholly
free from them, the controversy is one of words rather than
of things ; for I think that, if the reality and not the mere
sound of the words is considered, the Stoics hold precisely the
same opinion as the Platonists and Peripatetics. For, omitting
for brevity's sake other proofs which I might adduce in sup-
port of this opinion, I will state but one which I consider
conclusive. Aulus Gellius, a man of extensive erudition, and
gifted with an eloquent and graceful style, relates, in his work
entitled Nodes Atticcc^ that he once made a voyage with an
eminent Stoic philosopher; and he goes on to relate fully and
with gusto what T sliall barely state, that when the ship was
tossed and in danger fiom a violent storm, the philosopher

* The distinction Ixtwoon Ixmn and cmnmnda is thns j^ven by Seneca (i^. 87,
ad Jin.)'. "Comniodutn est (juod idus usus est (luain niolestiae ; bonuni sincerum
debet esse et ab onmi i»aite innoxium. "

8 Book xix. ch. 1.

TJOOK IX.] STOIC THEORY OF PERTURBATIONS. 357

grew pale with terror. This was noticed by those on board,
who, though themselves threatened with death, were curious
to see whether a philosopher would be agitated like other
men. When the tempest had passed over, and as soon as
their security gave them freedom to resume their talk, one-
of the passengers, a rich and luxurious Asiatic, begins to
banter the philosopher, and rally .him because he had even
become pale with fear, while he himself had been unmoved
by the impending destruction. But the philosopher availed
himself of the reply of Aristippus the Socratic, who, on find-
ing himself similarly bantered by a man of the same character,
answered, "You had no cause for anxiety for the soul of a
profligate debauchee, but I had reason to be alarmed for the
soul of Aristippus." The rich man being thus disposed of,
Aulus Gellius asked the philosopher, in the interests of science
and not to annoy him, what was the reason of his fear ? And
he, willing to instruct a man so zealous in the pursuit of
knowledge, at once took from his wallet a book of Epictetus
the Stoic,^ in which doctrines were advanced which precisely
harmonized with those of Zeno and Chrysippus, the founders
of the Stoical school. Aulus Gellius says that he read in
tliis book that the Stoics maintain that there are certain
impressions made on the soul by external objects which they
call ^liantasicc, and that it is not in the power of the soul to
determine whether or when it shall be invaded by these.
When these impressions are made by alarming and formidable
objects, it must needs be that they move the soul even of the
wise man, so that for a little he trembles with fear, or is
depressed by sadness, these impressions anticipating the work
of reason and seK-control ; but this does not imply that the
mind accepts these evil impressions, or approves or consents
to them. For this consent is, they think, in a man's power ;
there being this difference between the mind of the wise man
and that of the fool, that the fool's mind yields to these passions-
and consents to them, while that of the w4se man, though it
cannot help being invaded by them, yet retains with unshaken
firmness a true and steady persuasion of those things which
it ought rationally to desire or avoid. This account of what.

^ See Diog. Laert. ii. 71.

358 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

Aiilus (Jellius relates that he read in the book of Epictetus
about the sentiments and doctrines of the Stoics I have given
as well as I could, not, perhaps, with his choice language, but
witli greater brevity, and, I think, with greater clearness.
And if this be true, then tliere is no difference, or next to
none, between the opinion of the Stoics and that of the other
philosophers regarding mental passions and perturbations, for
botli parties agree in maintaining that the mind and reason of
the wise man are not subject to these. And perhaps what
the Stoics mean by asserting this, is that the wisdom which
characterizes the wise man is clouded by no eiTor and sullied
by no taint, but, with this reservation that his wisdom
remains undisturbed, he is exposed to the impressions wliich
the goods and ills of this life (or, as they prefer to call them,
the advantages or disadvantages) make upon them. Por we
need not say that if that philosopher had thought nothing of
those thincrs which he thou^dit he was forthwith to lose, life
and bodily safety, he would not have been so terrified by his
danger as to betray his fear by the pallor of his cheek.
Nevertheless, he might suffer this mental disturl)ance, and
yet maintain the fixed persuasion that life and bodily safety,
which the violence of the tempest threatened to destroy, are
not those good things which make their possessors good, as
the possession of righteousness does. But in so far as tliey
persist that we must call them not goods but advantages,
they quarrel about words and neglect things. For what
difference does it make whether goods or advantages be the
better name, while the Stoic no less than the Peripatetic is
alarmed at the prospect of losing them, and while, though they
name them differently, they hold them in like esteem ? Both
parties assure us that, if urged to the commission of some
immorality or crime by the threatened loss of these goods or
advantages, they would prefer to lose such things as preserve
bodily comfort and security rather than commit such things
as violate righteousness. And thus the mind in which this
resolution is well grounded suffers no perturbations to prevail
with it in opposition to reason, even though they assail the
weaker parts of the soul ; and not only so, but it rules over
them, and, wliile it refuses its consent and resists them, ad-

BOOK IX.] CHEISTIAN THEORY OF THE PASSIONS. 359

ministers a reign of virtue. Such a character is ascribed to
^neas by Vii'gil when he says,

" He stands immovable by tears,
Nor tenderest words with pity hears. " ^

5. That the passions which assail the souls of Cltristians do not seduce them
to vice, but exercise their virtue.

We need not at present give a careful and copious exposition
of the doctrine of Scripture, the sum of Christian knowledge, re-
garding these passions. It subjects the mind itself to God, that
He may rule and aid it, and the passions, again, to the mind,
to moderate and bridle them, and turn them to righteous uses.
In our ethics, we do not so much inquire whether a pious soul
is angry, as why he is angry ; not whether he is sad, but what
is the cause of his sadness ; not whether he fears, but what he
fears. For I am not aware that any right thinking person
would find fault with anger at a wrongdoer which seeks his
amendment, or with sadness which intends relief to the
suffering, or with fear lest one in danger be destroyed. The
Stoics, indeed, are accustomed to condemn compassion.'^ But
how much more honourable had it been in that Stoic we have
been telling of, had he been disturbed by compassion prompt-
ing him to relieve a fellow-creature, than to be disturbed by
the fear of ship\^Teck ! Far better, and more humane, and
more consonant with pious sentiments, are the words of Cicero
in praise of Caesar, when he says, " Among your virtues none
is more admirable and agreeable than your compassion."^
And w^hat is compassion but a fellow-feeling for another's
misery, which prompts us to help him if we can ? And this
emotion is obedient to reason, when compassion is shown
without violating right, as when the poor are relieved, or the
penitent forgiven. Cicero, who knew how to use language,
did not hesitate to call this a virtue, which the Stoics are not
ashamed to reckon among the vices, although, as the book
of that eminent Stoic, Epictetus, quoting the opinions of Zeno
and Chrysippus, the founders of the school, has taught us,
they admit that passions of this kind invade the soul of the
wise man, whom they would have to be free from all vice.

1 Virgil, JSneid, iv. 449. 2 Seueca, De Clem. ii. 4 and 5.

^ Pro. Lig. c. 12.

3G0 THE CITY OF GOD. [rOOK IX.

Whence it fcjllows that these very passions are not judged by
them to be vices, since they assail the wise man without
forcing him to act against reason and virtue ; and that, therefore,
the opinion of the Peripatetics or Platonists and of the Stoics
is one and the same. But, as Cicero says,^ mere logomachy
is the bane of these pitiful Greeks, who thirst for contention
rather than for truth. However, it may justly be asked,
whether our subjection to these affections, even while we
follow virtue, is a part of the infirmity of this life ? For
the holy angels feel no anger while they punish those whom
the eternal law of God consigns to punishment, no fellow-
feeling with misery while they relieve the miserable, no fear
while they aid those who are in danger ; and yet ordinary
language ascribes to them also these mental emotions, because,
though they have none of our weakness, their acts resemble
the actions to which these emotions move us ; and thus even
Cjod Himself is said in Scripture to be angry, and yet without
any perturbation. For this word is used of the effect of His
vengeance, not of the disturbing mental affection.

6. Of the passions ivhicJi, according to Apuleius, agitate the demons who are
supposed by him to mediate between gods and men.

Deferring for the present the question about the holy angels,
let us examine the opinion of the Platonists, that the demons
wlio mediate between gods and men are agitated by passions.
For if their mind, though exposed to their incursion, still
remained free and superior to them, Apuleius could not have
said tliat their hearts are tossed with passions as the sea by
stormy wiiids.^ Thoir mind, then, — that superior part of their
soul whereby they are rational beings, and wliicli, if it actually
exists in them, should rule and bridle the turbident passions
of the inferior parts of the soul, — this mind of theirs, I say, is,
according to the Platonist referred to, tossed with a hurricane
of passions. The mind of the demons, therefore, is subject to
the emotions of fear, ancjer, lust, and all similar affections.
What part of them, then, is free, and endued with wisdom,
so that they are pleasing to the gods, and the lit guides of
men into ]»urity of life, since their very highest part, being the
slave of passion and subject to vice, only makes them more
» Dt Oratore, i. 11, 47. > De Deo Soc

BOOK IX.] PAPtTY FEELING OF THE GODS. 361

intent on deceiving and seducing, in proportion to the mental
force and energy of desire they possess ?

7. That the Platonists maintain that the poets wrong the gods by representing
them as distracted by party feeling ^ to which the demons, and not the gods,
are subject.

But if any one says that it is not of all the demons, but
only of the wicked, that the poets, not without truth, say that
they violently love or hate certain men, — for it was of them
Apuleius said that they were driven about by strong currents
of emotion, — how can we accept this interpretation, when
Apuleius, in the very same connection, represents all the
demons, and not only the wicked, as intermediate between
gods and men by their aerial bodies ? The fiction of the poets,
according to him, consists in their making gods of demons,
and giving them the names of gods, and assigning them as
allies or enemies to individual men, using this poetical licence,
though they profess that the gods are very different in cha-
racter from the demons, and far exalted above them by their
celestial abode and wealth of beatitude. This, I say, is the
poets' fiction, to say that these are gods who are not gods, and
that, under the names of gods, they fight among themselves
about the men whom they love or hate with keen partisan
feeling. Apuleius says that this is not far from the truth,
since, though they are wrongfully called by the names of the
gods, they are described in their own proper character as demons.
To this category, he says, belongs the Minerva of Homer,
" who interposed in the ranks of the Greeks to restrain
Achilles."-^ For that this was Minerva he supposes to be
poetical fiction ; for he thinks that Minerva is a goddess, and
he places her among the gods whom he believes to be all good
and blessed in the sublime ethereal region, remote from in-
tercourse with men. But that there was a demon favourable
to the Greeks and adverse to the Trojans, as another, whom
the same poet mentions under the name of Venus or Mars
(gods exalted above earthly affairs in their heavenly habita-
tions), was the Trojans' ally and the foe of the Greeks, and
that these demons fought for those they loved against those
they hated, — in all this he owned that the poets stated some-

1 De Deo Soc.

3C2 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX

thing very like the truth. For they made these statements
about beings to whom he ascribes the same violent and tem-
pestuous passions as disturb men, and who are therefore
capable of loves and hatreds not justly formed, but formed in a
party spirit, as the spectators in races or hunts take fancies
and prejudices. It seems to have been the great fear of this
Platonist that the poetical fictions should be believed of the
gods, and not of the demons who bore their names.

8. How Apuklus defines the gods who dwdl in haven, the demons who occupy
the air, and men who inhabit tarth.

The definition wliicli Apuleius gives of demons, and in
which he of course includes all demons, is that they are in
nature animals, in soul subject to passion, in mind reasonable,
in body aerial, in duration eternal. Now in these five qualities
he has named absolutely notliing which is proper to good men
and not also to bad. For when Apuleius had spoken of the
celestials first, and had then extended his description so as to
include an account of those who dwell far below on the earth,
that, after describing the two extremes of rational being, he
might proceed to speak of the intermediate demons, he says,
" Men, therefore, wlio are endowed with the faculty of reason
and speech, whose soul is immortal and their members mortal,
who have weak and anxious spirits, dull and corruptible
bodies, dissimilar characters, similar ignorance, who are obsti-
nate in their audacity, and persistent in their hope, whose
labour is vain, and whose fortune is ever on the wane, their
race immortal, themselves perishing, each generation replenished
with creatures whose life is swift and their wisdom slow, their
death sudden and their life a wail, — these are tlie men who
dwell on the eartli."^ In recounting so many qualities which
belong to the large proportion of men, did he forget that which
is the property of the few when he speaks of their wisdom
being slow ? If tliis liad been omitted, this his description
of the liiunau race, so carefully elaborated, would have been
defective. And wlien he commended the excellence of the
gods, he affirmed that they excelled in that very blessedness
to which he thinks men must attain by wisdom. And there-
fore, if he had wished us to believe that some of the demons

1 Dc Deo Soc

BOOK IX.] AEE THE DEMONS MEDIATORS ? 363

are good, he should have inserted in his description something
by which we might see that they have, in common with the
gods, some share of blessedness, or, in common with men, some
wisdom. But, as it is, he has mentioned no good quality by
which the good may be distinguished from the bad. For
although he refrained from giving a full account of their
wickedness, through fear of offending, not themselves but their
worshippers, for whom he was writing, yet he sufficiently indi-
cated to discerning readers what opinion he had of them ; for
only in the one article of the eternity of their bodies does he
assimilate them to. the gods, all of whom, he asserts, are good
and blessed, and absolutely free from what he himself calls the
stormy passions of the demons ; and as to the soul, he quite
plainly affirms that they resemble men and not the gods, and
that this resemblance lies not in the possession of wisdom, which
even men can attain to, but in the perturbation of passions
which sway the foolish and wicked, but is so ruled by the good
and wise that they prefer not to admit rather than to conquer
it. For if he had wished it to be understood that the demons
resembled the gods in the eternity not of their bodies but of
their souls, he would certainly have admitted men to share in
this privilege, because, as a Platonist, he of course must hold
that the human soul is eternal. Accordingly, when describing
this race of living beings, he said that their souls were im-
mortal, their members mortal. And, consequently, if men
have not eternity in common with the gods because they have
mortal bodies, demons have eternity in common with the gods
because their bodies are immortal.

9. Whether the intercession of the demons can secure for men the friendship
of the celestial gods.

How, then, can men hope for a favourable introduction to
the friendship of the gods by such mediators as these, who
are, like men, defective in that which is the better part of
every living creature, viz. the soul, and who resemble the gods
only in the body, which is the inferior part ? For a living
creature or animal consists of soul and body, and of these two
parts the soul is undoubtedly the better ; even though vicious
and weak, it is obviously better than even the soundest and
strongest body, for the greater excellence of its nature is not

364 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK IX.

reduced to the level of the body even by the pollution of vice,
as gold, even when tarnished, is more precious than the purest
silver or lead. And yet these mediators, by whose interposi-
tion things human and divine are to be harmonized, have an
eternal body in common with the gods, and a vicious soul in
common with men, — as if the religion by which these demons
are to unite gods and men were a bodily, and not a spiritual
matter. "What wickedness, then, or punishment has suspended
these false and deceitful mediators, as it were head downwards,
so that their inferior part, their body, is linked to the gods
above, and their superior part, the soul, bound to men beneath ;
united to the celestial gods by the part that serves, and miser-
able, together with the inhabitants of earth, by the part that
rules ? For the body is the servant, as Sallust says : " We
use the soul to rule, the body to obey ;" ^ adding, " the one we
have in common with the gods, the other with the brutes."
For he was here speaking of men ; and they have, like the
brutes, a mortal body. These demons, whom our philosophic
friends have provided for us as mediators with the gods, may
indeed say of the soul and body, the one we have in com-
mon with the gods, the other with men ; but, as I said, they
are as it were suspended and bound head downwards, having
the slave, the body, in common with the gods, the master,
the soul, in common with miserable men, — their inferior part
exalted, their superior part depressed. And therefore, if any
one supposes that, because they are not subject, like terrestrial
animals, to the separation of soul and body by death, they
therefore resemble the gods in their eternity, their body must
not be considered a chariot of an eternid triumph, but rather
the chain of an eternal punishment.

10. That, according to Plotinus, men, whose body is mortal, are less wretched
than danons, whose hoily is eternal.

riotinus, whose memory is quite recent,^ enjoys the reputa-
tion of having understood Plato better than any other of hi.s
disciples. In speaking of human souls, he says, " The Father
in compassion made their bonds mortal;"^ that is to say, he

' Cat. Conj. i.

- riotinus died in 1270 A.D. For his relation to Plato, sec Augustine's Contra
Acad. iii. 41. ' Ennead. iv. 3. 12.

BOOK IX.] PLATONIC THEORY OF DEMONS. 365

considered it due to the Father's mercy that men, having a
mortal body, should not be for ever confined in the misery of
this life. But of this mercy the demons have been judged
unworthy, and they have received, in conjunction with a soul
subject to passions, a body not mortal like man's, but eternal.
For they should have been happier than men if they had, like
men, had a mortal body, and, like the gods, a blessed soul.
And they should have been equal to men, if in conjunction
with a miserable soul tliey had at least received, like men, a
mortal body, so that death might have freed them from
trouble, if, at least, they should have attained some degree
of piety. But, as it is, they are not only no happier than men,
having, like them, a miserable soul, they are also more wretched,
being eternally bound to the body ; for he does not leave us
to infer that by some progress in wisdom and piety they can
become gods, but expressly says that they are demons for ever.

11. Of the opinion of the Platonists, that the souls of men become demons
when disembodied.

He-^ says, indeed, that the souls of men are demons, and
that men become Lares if they are good, Lemures or Larvce if
they are bad, and Manes if it is uncertain whether they de-
serve well or ill. Who does not see at a glance that this is
a mere whirlpool sucking men to moral destruction ? For,
however wicked men have been, if they suppose they shall
become Larva3 or divine Manes, they will become the worse
the more love they have for inflicting injury ; for, as the Larvse
are hurtful demons made out of wdcked men, these men must
suppose that after death they will be invoked with sacrifices
and divine honours that they may inflict injuries. But this
question we must not pursue. He also states that the
blessed are called in Greek evhaifxove<;, because they are good
souls, that is to say, good demons, confirming his opinion tiiat
the souls of men are demons.

12. Of the three opposite qualities by ivhich the Platonists distinguish between
the nature of men and that oj demons.

But at present we are speaking of those beings whom he
described as being properly intermediate between gods and
men, in nature animals, in mind rational, in soul subject to

^ Apuleius, not Plotinus.

366 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOHK IX.

passion, in body aerial, in duration eternal. AVIiun he had
distinguislied the gods, whom he placed in the highest heaven,
from men, wliom he placed on earth, not only by position but
also by the unequal dignity of their natures, he concluded in
these words : " You have here two kinds of aninmls : the
gods, widely distinguished from men by sublimity of abode,
perpetuity of life, perfection of nature ; for their habitations
are separated by so wide an interval that there can be no
intimate communication between them, and while the vitality
of the one is eternal and indefeasible, that of the others is
fading and precarious, and while the spirits of the gods are
exalted in bliss, those of men are sunk in miseries."^ Here
I find three opposite qualities ascribed to the extremes of
being, the highest and lowest. For, after mentioning the three
qualities for which we are to admire the gods, he repeated,
though in other words, the same three as a foil to the defects of
man. The three qualities are, " sublimity of abode, perpetuity
of life, perfection of nature." These he again mentioned so
as to bring out their contrasts in man's condition. As he had
mentioned " sublimity of abode," he says, " Their habitations
are separated by so wide an interval ;" as he had men-
tioned " perpetuity of life," he says, that " while divine life is
eternal and indefeasible, human life is fading and precarious ;"
and as he had mentioned " perfection of nature," he says, that
" while the spirits of the gods are exalted in bliss, those of
men are sunk in miseries." These three things, then, he pre-
dicates of the gods, exaltation, eternity, blessedness ; and of
man he predicates the opposite, lowliness of habitation, mor-
tality, misery.

13. llow the (lemons can meilinte. hefween gods and men if they have nothing
in comi/wn with both, being neitJicr blessed like the gods, nor miserable like
vien.

If, now, we endeavour to find between these opposites the
mean occupied by the demons, there can be no question as to
their local position ; for, between the highest and lowest place,
there is a place which is riglitly considered and called the
middle place. The other two qualities remain, and to them
we must give greater care, that we may see whether they are
* De Deo Socratis.

BOOK IX.] DEMONS NOT MEDIATOES. 367

altogether foreign to the demons, or how they are so bestowed
upon them without infringing upon their mediate position.
"We may dismiss the idea that they are foreign to them. For
we cannot say that the demons, being rational animals, are
neither blessed nor wretched, as we say of the beasts and
plants, which are void of feeling and reason, or as we say of
the middle place, that it is neither the highest nor the lowest.
The demons, being rational, must be either miserable or blessed.
And, in like manner, we cannot say that they are neither
mortal nor immortal; for all living things either live eter-
nally or end life in death. Our author, besides, stated that
the demons are eternal. "What remains for us to suppose,
then, but that these mediate beings are assimilated to the gods
in one of the two reinaining qualities, and to men in the other ?
For if they received both from above, or both from beneath,
they should no longer be mediate, but either rise to the gods
above, or sink to men beneath. Therefore, as it has been
demonstrated that they must possess these two qualities, they
will hold their middle place if they receive one from each
party. Consequently, as they cannot receive their eternity
from beneath, because it is not there to receive, they must get
it from above ; and accordingly they have no choice but to
complete their mediate position by accepting misery from men.
According to the Platonists, then, the gods, who occupy the
highest place, enjoy eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity;
men, who occupy the lowest, a mortal misery, or a miserable
mortality ; and the demons, who occupy the mean, a miserable
eternity, or an eternal misery. As to those five things which
Apuleius included in his definition ot demons, he did not
show, as he promised, that the demons are mediate. For three
of them, that their nature is animal, their mind rational, their
soul subject to passions, he said that they have in common
with men ; one thing, their eternity, in common with the gods ;
and one proper to themselves, their aerial body. How, then,
are they intermediate, when they have three things in common
with the lowest, and only one in common with the highest ?
Who does not see that the intermediate position is abandoned
in proportion as they tend to, and are depressed towards, the
lowest extreme ? But perhaps we are to accept them as

368 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

intermediate "because of their one property of an aerial
body, as the two extremes have each their proper body,
the gods an ethereal, men a terrestrial body, and because
two of the qualities they possess in common with man they
possess also in common with the gods, namely, their animal
nature and rational mind. For Apuleius himself, in speakin^^^
of gods and men, said, " You have two animal natures." And
Platonists are wont to ascribe a rational mind' to the gods.
Two qualities remain, their liability to passion, and their
eternity, — the first of which they have in connnon with men,
the second with the gods ; so that they are neither wafted to
the highest nor depressed to the lowest extreme, but perfectly
poised in their intermediate position. But then, this is the
very circumstance which constitutes the eternal misery, or
miserable eternity, of the demons. For he who says that
their soul is subject to passions would also have said that
they are miserable, had he not blushed for their worshippers.
Moreover, as the world is governed, not by fortuitous hap-
hazard, but, as the Platonists themselves avow, by the provi-
dence of the supreme God, the misery of the demons would
not be eternal unless their wdckedness were great.

If, then, the blessed are rightly styled cudcmons, the demons
intermediate between gods and men are not eudemons. What,
then, is the local position of those good demons, who, above
men but beneath the gods, afford assistance to the former,
minister to the latter ? For if they are good and eternal,
they are doubtless blessed. But eternal blessedness destroys
their intermediate character, giving them a close resemblance
to the gods, and widely separating them from men. And
therefore the Platonists will in vain strive to show how the
good demons, if they are both immortal and blessed, can justly
be said to hold a middle place between the gods, who are
immortal and blessed, and men, who are mortal and miserable.
For if they have both immortality and blessedness in commun
with the gods, and neither of these in common witli men, who
are both miserable and mortal, are they not rather remote
from men and united witli the i:(»ds, than intermediate between
them ? They would be intermediate if they held one of their
qualities in common with the one party, and the other witli

BOOK IX.] CHRIST JESUS THE TRUE MEDIATOR. 369

the other, as man is a kind of mean between angels and
beasts, — the beast being an irrational and mortal animal, the
angel a rational and immortal one, while man, inferior to the
angel and superior to the beast, and having in common with
the one mortality, and with the other reason, is a rational and
mortal animal. So, when we seek for an intermediate between
the blessed immortals and miserable mortals, we should find
a being which is either mortal and blessed, or immortal and
miserable.

14. Whether men, though mortal, can enjoy true blessedness.

It is a great question among men, whether man can be
mortal and blessed. Some, taldng the humbler view of his
condition, have denied that he is capable of blessedness so
long as he continues in this mortal life ; others, again, have
spurned this idea, and have been bold enough to maintain
that, even though mortal, men may be blessed by attaining
wisdom. But if this be the case, why are not these wise men
constituted mediators between miserable mortals and the
blessed immortals, since they have blessedness in common
with the latter, and mortality in common with the former ?
Certainly, if they are blessed, they envy no one (for what
more miserable than envy ?), but seek with all their might
to help miserable mortals on to blessedness, so that after
death they may become immortal, and be associated with the
blessed and immortal angels.

15. Of the man Christ Jesus, the Mediator heiiveen God and men.

But if, as is much more probable and credible, it must
needs be that all men, so long as they are mortal, are also
miserable, we must seek an intermediate who is not only man,
but also God, that, by the interposition of His blessed mor-
tality. He may bring men out of their mortal misery to a
blessed immortality. In this intermediate two things are
requisite, that He become mortal, and that He do not continue
mortal He did become mortal, not rendering the divinity
of the AVord infirm, but assuming the infirmity of flesh.
Neither did He continue mortal in the flesh, but raised it from
the dead ; for it is the very fruit of His mediation that tliose,
for the sake of whose redemption He became the Mediator,

VOL. I. 2 A

o /

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

i^

should not abide eternally in bodily death. Wlierefore it
became the Mediator between us and God to have both a
transient mortality and a permanent blessedness, that by that
A^.^which is transient He might be assimilated to mortals, and
r J p might translate them from mortality to that ^vhich is per-
manent. Good angels, therefore, cannot mediate between
niisciable mortals and blessed immortals, for they themselves
also are both blessed and immortal ; but evil angels can niediaj;e^
because they are immortal like the one party, miserable like
'the other. To these is opposed the good Mediator, whn, in
opposition to their immortality and misery, has chosen to be
mortal for a time, and has been able to continue blessed in
eternity. It is thus He has destroyed, by the humility of
His death and the benignity of His blessedness, those proud
immortals and hurtful wretches, and has prevented them from
seducing to misery by their boast of immortality those men
! whose hearts He has cleansed by faith, and whom He has
'thus freed from their impure dominion.

Man, then, mortal and miserable, and far removed from the
immortal and the blessed, what medium shall he choose by
which he may be united to immortality and blessedness ?
The immortality of the demons, which might have some
charm for man, is miserable; the mortality of Clu:ist, which
might offend man, exists no longer. In the one there is
the fear of an eternal misery ; in the other, death, which
could not be eternal, can no longer be feared, and blessedness,
which is eternal, must be loved. For the immortal and
miserable mediator interposes himself to prevent us from
passing to a blessed immortality, because that which hinders
such a passage, namely, misery, continues in him ; but the
mortal and blessed Mediator interposed Himself, in order that,
having j)assed through mortality, He might of mortals make
immortals (showing His power to do this in His own resur-
rection), and from being miserable to raise them to the blessed
com])any from the number of whom Ho had Himself never de-
parted. Tliere is, then, a wicked mediator, who separates friends,
and a good Mediator, who reconciles enemies. And those who
separate are numerous, because the multitude of the blessed are
blessed only by their participation in the one God ; of which

BOOK IX.] INTERCOURSE OF GODS AND MEN. 371

participation the evil angels being deprived, they are wretched,
and interpose to hinder rather than to help to this blessedness,
and by their very number prevent us from reaching that one
beatific good, to obtain which we need not many but one
Mediator, the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things
were made, and in partaking of whom we are blessed. I do
not say that He is Mediator because He is the Word, for as
the Word He is supremely blessed and supremely immortal,
and therefore far from miserable mortals ; but He is Mediator
as He is man, for by His humanity He shows us that, in
order to obtain that blessed and beatific good, we need not
seek other mediators to lead us through the successive steps
of this attainment, but that the blessed and beatific God,
having Himself become a partaker of our humanity, has
afforded us ready access to the participation of His divinity.
For in delivering us from our mortality and misery, He does
not lead us to the immortal and blessed angels, so that we
should become immortal and blessed by participating in their
nature, but He leads us straight to that Trinity, by partici-
pating in which the angels themselves are blessed. Therefore,
when He chose to be in the form of a servant, and lower than
the angels, that He might be our Mediator, He remained
higher than the angels, in the form of God, — Himself at once
the way of life on earth and life itself in heaven.

16. Whether it is reasonable in the Platonlststo determine that the celestial gods
decline contact with earthly things and intercourse with men, icho there-
fore require the intercession of the demons.

That opinion, which the same Platonist avers that Plato
uttered, is not true, "that no god holds intercourse with men."-^
And this, he says, is the chief evidence of their exaltation, that
they are never contaminated by contact with men. He admits,
therefore, that the demons are contaminated ; and it follows
that they cannot cleanse those by whom they are themselves
contaminated, and thus all alike become impure, the demons
by associating with men, and men by worshipping the demons.
Or, if they say that the demons are not contaminated by
associating and dealing with men, then they are better than the
gods, for the gods, were they to do so, would be contaminated.

^ Apuleius, ihid.

372 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK DC

For this, we are told, is the glory of the gods, that they are so
highly exalted that no human intercourse can sully them.
He affirms, indeed, that the supreme God, the Creator of all
things, whom we call the true God, is spoken of by Plato as
the only God whom the poverty of human speech fails even
passably to describe ; and that even the wise, when their
mental energy is as far as possible delivered from the tram-
mels of connection with the body, have only such gleams of
insight into His nature as may be compared to a flash of
liglitning illumining the darkness. K, then, this supreme
God, who is truly exalted above all things, does nevertheless
visit the minds of the wise, wlien emancipated from the body,
with an intelligible and ineffable presence, though this be
only occasional, and as it were a swift flash of light athwart
the darkness, why are the other gods so sublimely removed
from all contact with men, as if they would be polluted by it ?
as if it were not a sufficient refutation of this to lift up our
eyes to those heavenly bodies which give the earth its needful
liglit. If the stars, though they, by his account, are visible
gods, are not contaminated when we look at them, neither are
the demons contaminated when men see them quite closely.
But perhaps it is the human voice, and not the eye, wliich
pollutes the gods ; and therefore the demons are appointed to
mediate and carry men's utterances to the gods, who keep
themselves remote tlirough fear of pollution ? What am I to
say of tlie otlier senses ? For by smell neither the demons,
who are present, nor tlie gods, tliough they were present and
inlialing tlie exhalations of living men, would be polluted if tliey
are not contaminated with the effluvia of the carcases offered
in sacrifice. As for taste, they are pressed by no necessity of
repairing bodily decay, so as to be reduced to ask food from men.
And touch is in their own power. For while it may seem that
contact is so called, because the sense of touch is specially
concerned in it, yet the gods, if so minded, might mingle with
men, so as to see and be seen, hear and be heard ; and where
is the need ot toucliing ? For men would not dare to desire
this, if they were favoured with the sight or conversation of
gods or good demons ; and if through excessive curiosity they
should desire it, how could they accomplish their wish with-

BOOK IX.] CONTAMINATION OF THIS INFLUENCE. 373

out the consent of the god or demon, when they cannot touch
so much as a sparrow unless it be caged ?

There is, then, nothing to hinder the gods from mingling in
a bodily form with men, from seeing and being seen, from
speaking and hearing. And if the demons do thus mix with
men, as I said, and are not polluted, while the gods, were they
to do so, should be polluted, then the demons are less liable to
pollution than the gods. And if even the demons are con-
taminated, how can they help men to attain blessedness after
death, if, so far from being able to cleanse them, and present
them clean to the unpolluted gods, these mediators are them-
selves polluted ? And if they cannot confer this benefit on
men, what good can their friendly mediation do ? Or shall
its result be, not that men find entrance to the gods, but that
men and demons abide together in a state of pollution, and
consequently of exclusion from blessedness ? Unless, perhaps,
some one may say that, like sponges or things of that sort, the
demons themselves, in the process of cleansing their friends,
become themselves the filthier in proportion as the others
become clean. But if this is the solution, then the gods, who
shun contact or intercourse with men for fear of pollution, mix
with demons who are far more polluted. Or perhaps the
gods, who cannot cleanse men without polluting themselves,
can without pollution cleanse the demons who have been con-
taminated by human contact ? Who can believe such follies,
unless the demons have practised their deceit upon him ? If
seeing and being seen is contamination, and if the gods, whom
Apuleius himself calls visible, "the brilliant lights of the
world," ^ and the other stars, are seen by men, are we to believe
that the demons, who cannot be seen unless they please, are
safer from contamination ? Or if it is only the seeing and not
the being seen which contaminates, then they must deny that
these gods of theirs, these brilliant lights of the world, see
men when their rays beam upon the earth. Their rays are
not contaminated by lighting on all manner of pollution, and
are we to suppose that the gods would be contaminated if
they mixed with men, and even it contact were needed in
order to assist them ? Tor there is contact between the earth

^ Virgil, Geurg. i. 5.

374 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

and the sun's or moon's rays, and yet this does not pollute
the light.

17. That to obtain the lleAsed life, which conmts in partahng of the supreme
good, man needs such mediation as is furnished not by a demon, but by
Christ alone.

1 am consideraljly surprised that such learned men, men
who pronounce all material* and sensible things to be alto-
gether inferior to tliose that are spiritual and intelligible,
should mention bodily contact in connection with the blessed
life. Is that sentiment of Plotinus forgotten ? — " We must fly
to our beloved fatherland. There is the Father, there our all.
What fleet or flight shall convey us thither ? Our way is, to
become like God."^ If, then, one is nearer to God the liker
he is to Him, there is no other distance from God than un-
likeness to Him. And the soul of man is unlike that incor-
poreal and unchangeable and eternal essence, in proportion as
it craves things temporal and mutable. And as the things
beneath, which are mortal and impure, cannot hold intercourse
with the immortal purity which is above, a mediator is indeed
needed to remove this difficulty ; but not a mediator who re-
sembles the highest order of being by possessing an immortal
body, and the lowest by having a diseased soul, which makes
him rather grudge that we be healed than help our cure. We
need a Mediator tvho, being united to us here below by the mor-
tality of His body, should at the same time be able to aftord us
truly divine help in cleansing and liberating us by means of
the immortal righteousness of His spirit, whereby He remained
heavenly even wliile here upon earth. Far be it from the
incontaminable God to fear pollution from the man'^ He as-
sumed, or from the men among whom He lived in the form
of a man. For, though His incarnation showed us nothing
else, these two wholesome facts were enough, that true
divinity cannot be polluted by flesh, and that demons are not
to be considered better than ourselves because they have not
flesh.' This, then, as Scripture says, is the " Mediator between
God and man, the man Clirist Jesus,"* of whose divinity,

^ Aiij^nistiiie njiparrntly ([uolos from memory from two passages of the En-
ncodrs, I. vi. 8, and ii. 3.

2 Or, humatiity. ^ Comp. De Trin. 13. 22. * 1 Tim. ii. 5.

BOOK IX.] JIEAKING OF THE WORD DEMON. 375

whereby He is equal to the Father, and humanity, whereby
He has become like us, this is not the place to speak as fully
as I could.

18. That the deceitful demons, while iDromising to conduct men to God by their
intercession, mean to turn them from the path of truth.

As to the demons, these false and deceitful mediators, who,
though their unclea,nness of spirit frequently reveals their
misery and malignity, yet, by virtue of the levity of their aerial
bodies and the nature of the places they inhabit, do contrive
to turn us aside and hinder our spiritual progress ; they do
not help us towards God, but rather prevent us from reaching
Him. Since even in the bodily way, which is erroneous and
misleading, and in which righteousness does not walk, — for we
must rise to God not by bodily ascent, but by incorporeal or
spiritual conformity to Him, — in this bodily way, I say, which
the friends of the demons arranE^e accordincj to the weij^ht of
the various elements, the aerial demons being set between the
ethereal gods and earthy men, they imagine the gods to have
this privilege, that by this local interval they are preserved
from the pollution of liuman contact. Thus they believe that
the demons are contaminated by men rather than men cleansed
by the demons, and that the gods themselves should be pol-
luted unless their local superiority preserved them. Who is
so wretched a creature as to expect purification by a way in
which men are contaminating, demons contaminated, and gods
contaminable ? "Who would not rather choose that way whereby
we escape the contamination of the demons, and are cleansed
from pollution by the incontaminable God, so as to be associ-
ated with the uncontaminated angels ?

19. That even among their own worshippers the name "demon " has never a
good signification.

But as some of these demonolators, as I may call them,
and among them Labeo, allege that those whom they call
demons are by others called angels, I must, if I would not
seem to dispute merely about words, say something about the
good angels. The Platonists do not deny their existence, but
prefer to call them good demons. But we, following Scripture,
according to which we are Christians, have learned that some
of the angels are good, some bad, but never have we read in

HTH THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

Scripture of good demons ; but wherever this or any cognate
term occurs, it is applied only to wicked spirits. And this
usage has become so universal, tliat, even among those who
are called pagans, and who maintain that demons as well as
gods should be worshipped, tliere is scarcely a man, no matter
how well read and learned, who would dare to say by way of
praise to his slave, You have a demon, or who could doubt
that the man to whom he said this would consider it a curse ?
Why, then, are we to subject ourselves to the necessity of
explaining away what we have said when we have given
offence by using the word demon, with which every one, or
almost every one, connects a bad meaning, while we can so
easily evade this necessity by using the word angel ?

20. Of the kind of knowleiJ<je u-hich puffs up the demons.

However, the very origin of the name suggests something
worthy of consideration, if we compare it with the divine
books. They are called demons from a Greek word meaning
knowledge.^ Now the apostle, speaking with the Holy Spirit,
says, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up.""''
And this can only be understood as meaning that -sWthout
charity knowledge does no good, but inflates a man or magni-
fies him with an empty windiness. The demons, then, have
knowledge without charity, and are thereby so inflated or
proud, that they crave those divine honours and religious ser-
vices which they know to be due to the true God, and still,
as far as they can, exact these from all over whom they have
influence. Against this pride of the demons, under which the
liuman race was held subject as its merited punishment, there
was exerted the mighty influence of the humility of God, who
appeared in the form of a servant ; but men, resembling the
demons in pride, but not in knowledge, and being puffed up
with uncleannoss, failed to recognise Him.

21. To what extent the Lord was pleajicd to make Himself known to the demoirn.

The devils themselves knew this manifestation of God so
well, that they said to the Lord, though clotlied with the

* Ja/u/wr = JflcruA/*, kiiowiiig ; SO Tlato, Crafi/hi8, 398. B,
' 1 Cor. viii. 1.

BOOK IX.] now FAR CHRIST WAS KNOWN BY DEMONS. 377

infirmity of flesh, " \VTiat have we to do with Thee, Jesus of
Nazareth ? Art Thou come to destroy us before the time ?"^
From these words, it is clear that they had great knowledge,
and no charity. They feared His power to punish, and did not
love His righteousness. He made known to them so much
as He pleased, and He was pleased to make known so much
as was needful. But He made Himself known, not as to the
holy angels, who know Him as the Word of God, and rejoice
in His eternity, which they partake, but as was requisite to
strike with terror the beings from whose tyranny He was going
to free those who were predestined to His kingdom and the
glory of it, eternally true and truly eternal. He made Him-
self known, therefore, to the demons, not by that which is life
eternal, and the unchangeable light which illumines the pious,
whose souls are cleansed by the faith that is in Him, but by
some temporal effects of His power, and evidences of His
mysterious presence, which were more easily discerned by the
angelic senses even of wicked spirits than by human infirmity.
But when He judged it advisable gradually to suppress these
signs, and to retire into deeper obscurity, the prince of the
demons doubted whether He were the Christ, and endeavoured
to ascertain this by tempting Him, in so far as He permitted
Himself to be tempted, that He might adapt the manhood He
wore to be an example for our imitation. But after that
temptation, when, as Scripture says. He was ministered to^ by
the angels who are good and holy, and therefore objects of
terror to the impure spirits, He revealed more and more dis-
tinctly to the demons how great He was, so that, even though
the infirmity of His flesh might seem contemptible, none dared
to resist His authority.

22. The (difference hetween the hioioledge of the holy angels and that
oj the demons.

The good angels, therefore, hold cheap all that knowledge
of material and transitory things which the demons are so
proud of possessing, — not that they are ignorant of these things,
but because the love of God, whereby they are sanctified, is
very dear to them, and because, in comparison of that not
merely immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty,

1 Mark i. 24. s Matt. iv. 3-11.

378 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

with tlie holy love of which they are inflamed, they despise
all thini^'s which are beneath it, and all that is not it, that they
may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that good
which is the source of their goodness. And therefore they
have a more certain knowledge even of those temporal and
mutable things, because they contemplate their principles and
causes in the word of God, by which the world was made, —
those causes by which one thing is approved, another rejected,
and all arranged. But the demons do not behold in the wisdom
of God these eternal, and, as it were, cardinal causes of things
temporal, but only foresee a larger part of the future than
men do, by reason of their greater acquaintance w4th the signs
which are hidden from us. Sometimes, too, it is their own in-
tentions they predict. And, finally, the demons are frequently,
the angels never, deceived. For it is one thing, by the aid
of things temporal and changeable, to conjecture the changes
that may occur in time, and to modify such things by one's
own will and faculty, — and this is to a certain extent per-
mitted to the demons, — it is another thing to foresee the
changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws of God,
which live in His wisdom, and to know the will of God, the
most infallible and powerful of all causes, by participating in
His spirit ; and this is granted to the holy angels by a just
discretion. And thus they are not only eternal, but blessed.
And the good wherein they are blessed is God, by whom they
were created. For without end they enjoy the contemplation
and participation of Him.

23. That the name of gods is falsehj fjiven to the gods of the Oentiles, though
Scripture applies it both to the holy angels and just men.

It the riatonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than
demons, and to reckon them with those whom Plato, their
founder and master, maintains were created by the supreme
God,^ they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend strength
in lighting about words. For if they say that these beings
are immortal, and yet created by the supreme God, blessed
but by cleaving to their Creator and not by their own power,
they say wliat we say, whatever name they call these beings
by. And that this is the opinion either of all or the best of

* Tinians,

BOOK IX.] PROPER APPLICATION OF TERM " GODS." 379

the Platonists can be ascertained by tlieir writings. And re-
garding the name itself, if they see fit to call such blessed and
immortal creatures gods, this need not give rise to any serious
discussion between us, since in our own Scriptures we read,
" The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken ;"^ and again, " Con-
fess to the God of gods;"^ and again, "He is a great King
above all gods."^ And where it is said, " He is to be feared
above all gods," the reason is forthwith added, for it follows,
" for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made
the heavens."* He said, "above all gods," but added, "of the
nations;" that is to say, above all those whom the nations
count gods, in other words, demons. By them He is to be
feared with that terror in which they cried to the Lord, " Hast
Thou come to destroy us ?" But where it is said, " the God of
gods," it cannot be understood as the god of the demons ; and
far be it from us to say that " great King above all gods "
means " great King above all demons." But the same Scripture
also calls men who belong to God's people "gods :" "I have said,
Ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High."^ Ac-
cordingly, when God is styled God of gods, this may be under-
stood of these gods ; and so, too, wdien He is styled a great
King above all gods.

Nevertheless, some one may say, if men are called gods
because they belong to God's people, whom He addresses by
means of men and angels, are not the immortals, who already
enjoy that felicity which men seek to attain by worshipping
God, much more worthy of the title ? And what shall we
reply to this, if not that it is not without reason that in holy
Scripture men are more expressly styled gods than those im-
mortal and blessed spirits to whom we hope to be equal in
the resurrection, because there was a fear that the weakness
of unbelief, being overcome with the excellence of these beings,
might presume to constitute some of them a god ? In the
case of men this was a result that need not be guarded against.
Besides, it was right that the men belonging to God's people
shoidd be more expressly called gods, to assure and certify
them that He who is called God of gods is their God ; be-

^ Ps. 1. 1. 5} pg cxxxvi. 2. ' Ps. xcv. 3.

* Ps. xcvi. 5, G. ' Ps. Ixxxii. 6.

380 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK IX.

cause, although those immortal and blessed spirits who dwell
ill the heavens are called gods, yet they are not called gods of
gods, that is to say, gods of the men who constitute God's
people, and to whom it is said, " I have said, Ye are gods, and
all of you the children of the ]\Iost High." Hence the saying
of the apostle, " Though there be that are called gods, whether
in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many,
but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
are all things, and we by Him."^

We need not, therefore, laboriously contend about the name,
since the reality is so obvious as to admit of no shadow of
doubt. That which we say, that the angels who are sent to
announce tlie will of God to men belong to the order of blessed
immortals, does not satisfy the Platonists, because they believe
that this ministry is discharged, not by those whom they call
gods, in other words, not by blessed immortals, but by demons,
whom they dare not affirm to be blessed, but only immortal,
or if they do rank them among the blessed immortals, yet only
as good demons, and not as gods who dwell in the heaven of
heavens remote from all human contact. But, though it may
seem mere wrangling about a name, yet the name of demon
is so detestable that we cannot bear in any sense to apply it
to the holy angels. Now, theretore, let us close this book in
the assurance that, whatever we call these immortal and
blessed spirits, who yet are only creatures, they do not act as
mediators to introduce to everlasting felicity miserable mortals,
from whom they are severed by a twofold distinction. And
those others who are mediators, in so far as they have im-
mortality in common with their superiors, and misery in
common with their inferiors (for they are justly miserable in
punisliment of their wickedness), cannot bestow upon us, but
rather grudge that we should possess, the blessedness from
which they themselves are excluded. And so the friends of
tlie demons liave nothing considerable to allege why we should
rather worsliip them as our helpers than avoid them as traitors
to our interests. As for those spirits who are good, and who
arc therefore not only immortal but also blessed, and to whom

* 1 Cor. viii. 5, (3.

BOOK IX.] CONCLUSION. 381

they suppose we should give the title of gods, and offer wor-
ship and sacrifices for the sake of inheriting a future life, we
shall, by God's help, endeavour in the following book to show
that these spirits, call them by what name, and ascribe to them
what nature you will, desire that religious worship be paid to
God alone, by whom they were created, and by whose com-
munications of Himself to them they are blessed.

3!^ 2 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

BOOK TEXT 11.
ARGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK AUGUSTINE TEACHES THAT THE GOOD ANGELS WISH GOD ALONE,
WHOM THEY THEMSELVES SERVE, TO RECEIVE THAT DIVINE HONOUR WHICH
IS RENDERED BY SACRIFICE, AND WHICH IS CALLED "LATREIA." HE THEN
GOES ON TO DISPUTE AGAINST POKl'HYRY ABOUT THE I'lUNCII'LE AND WAY
OF THE soul's CLEANSING AND DELIVERANCE.

1. That the Plntojiitts themselves have detmnined that God alone can confer
happiness either on angels or men, but that it yet remains a question
whether those spirifji whom they direct us to worship, that ice may obtain
happiness, wish sacrifice to be offered to themselves, or to the one God
only.

IT is the decided opinion of all wlio use their brains, that
all men desire to be happy. But who are happy, or
how they become so, these are questions about which the
weakness of human understanding stirs endless and angry
controversies, in which philosophers have wasted their strengtli
and expended their leisure. To adduce and discuss their
various opinions would be tedious, and is unnecessary. The
reader may remember what we said in the eighth book, while
maldng a selection of the philosophers with whom we might
discuss the question regarding the future life of happiness,
whether we can reach it by paying divine honours to the one
true God, the Creator of all gods, or by worshipping many
gods, and he will not expect us to repeat here the same
argument, especially as, even if he lias forgotten it, he may
refresh his memory by repcrusal. For we made selection of
the I'latonists, justly esteemed the noblest of the philosophers,
because they had the wit to perceive that the human soul,
immortal and rational, or intellectual, as it is, cannot be happy
except by partaking of the light of that God by whom botli
itself and the world were made ; and also tliat the happy life
which all men desire cannot be reached by any who does not
cleave with a pure and holy love to that one supreme good,

BOOK X.] EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 383

the unchangeable God. But as even these philosophers,
whether accommodating to the folly and ignorance of the
people, or, as the apostle says, " becoming vain in their ima-
ginations,"-^ supposed or allowed others to suppose that many
gods should be worshipped, so that some of them considered
that divine honour by worship and sacrifice should be ren-
dered even to the demons (an error I have already exploded),
we must now, by God's help, ascertain what is thought about
our religious worship and piety by those immortal and blessed
spirits, who dwell in the heavenly places among dominations,
principalities, powers, whom the Platonists call gods, and
some either good demons, or, like us, angels, — that is to say,
to put it more plainly, whether the angels desire us to offer
sacrifice and worship, and to consecrate our possessions and
ourselves, to them, or only to God, theirs and ours.

For this is the worship which is due to the Divinity, or,
to speak more accurately, to the Deity ; and, to express this
worship in a single word, as there does not occur to me any
Latin term sufficiently exact, I shall avail myself, whenever
necessary, of a Greek word. Aarpela, whenever it occurs in
Scripture, is rendered by the word service. But that service
which is due to men, and in reference to which the apostle
wiites that servants must be subject to their own masters,^ is
usually designated by another word in Greek, ^ whereas the
service which is paid to God alone by worship, is always, or
almost always, called Xarpela in the usage of those who wrote
from the divine oracles. This cannot so well be called simply
" cultus," for in that case it would not seem to be due exclu-
sively to God; for the same word is aj)plied to the respect
we pay either to the memory or the living presence of men.
From it, too, v^e derive the words agriculture, colonist, and
others.* And the heathen call their gods " coelicolffi," not be-
cause they worship heaven, but because they dwell in it, and
as it were colonize it, — not in the sense in which we call those
colonists who are attached to their native soil to cultivate it

1 Rom. i. 21. 2 p^^,]i vj 5

3 Namely, ^ovXua. : comp. Qucust. in Exod. 94 ; Qucest. in Gen. 21 ; Contra
Faustum, 15. 9, etc.
■* Agricolae, coloui, incolae.

38-1: THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

under the rule of the owners, but in the sense in which the
great master of the Latin language says, " There was an ancient
city inhabited by Tyrian colonists." ^ He called them colonists,
not because they cultivated the soil, but because they in-
habited the city. So, too, cities that have hived off from
larger cities are called colonies. Consequently, while it is
quite true that, using the word in a special sense, " cult " can
be rendered to none but God, yet, as the word is applied to
other things besides, the cult due to God cannot in Latin be
expressed by this word alone.

The word " religion " might seem to express more definitely
the worship due to God alone, and therefore Latin trans-
lators have used this word to represent Opr^cKeia ; yet, as not
only the uneducated, but also the best instructed, use the word
religion to express human ties, and relationships, and aflinities,
it would inevitably introduce ambiguity to use this word in
discussing the worship of God, unable as we are to say that
religion is nothing else than the worship of God, without con-
tradicting the common usage which applies this w^ord to the
observance of social relationships. "Piety," again, or, as the
Greeks say, evae^eia, is commonly understood as the proper
designation of the worship of God. Yet this word also is used
of dutifulness to parents. The common people, too, use it of
works of charity, which, I suppose, arises from the circum-
stance that God enjoins the performance of such works, and
declares that He is pleased with them instead of, or in pre-
ference to sacrifices. From this usage it has also come to pass
that God Himself is called pious,^ in which sense the Greeks
never use evae^elv, though eia-effeca is applied to works of
charity by their common people also. In some passages of
Scripture, therefore, they have sought to preserve the dis-
tinction by using not evai^eta, the more general word, but
deoatfSeia, which literally denotes the worship of God. We,
on the other hand, cannot express cither of these ideas by one
word. Tliis worship, then, which in Greek is called Xarpeia,
and in T^atin " scrvitus " [service], but the service due to God
only ; this worshi]), which in Greek is called OpjjaKeta, and in

> Vir;^Ml, EneUl, i. 12.

« 2 Cliron. xxx. 9 ; Eccl. xi. 13 ; Judith vii. 20.

BOOK X.] TLOTINUS ON ENLIGHTENMENT. 385

Latin " religio," but the religion by which we are bound to God
only ; this worship, which they call deoaef^eia, but which we
cannot express in one word, but call it the worship of God, —
this, we say, belongs only to that God who is the true God, and
who makes His worshippers gods.-^ And therefore, whoever
these immortal and blessed inhabitants of heaven be, if they do
not love us, and wdsh us to be blessed, then we ought not to
worship them ; and if they do love us and desire our happi-
ness, they cannot wish us to be made happy by any other
means than they themselves have enjoyed, — for how could
they wish our blessedness to flow from one source, theirs from
another ?
2. The opinion of Plotlnus the Platonist regarding enlightenment from above.

But with these more estimable philosophers we have no
dispute in this matter. For they perceived, and in various
forms abundantly expressed in their writings, that these spirits
have the same source of happiness as ourselves, — a certain
intelligible light, which is their God, and is different from
themselves, and illumines them that they may be penetrated
with light, and enjoy perfect happiness in the participation of
God. Plotinus, commenting on Plato, repeatedly and strongly
asserts that not even the soul which they believe to be the
soul of the world, derives its blessedness from any other
source than we do, viz. from that Light which is distinct from
it and created it, and by w^hose intelligible illumination it
enjoys light in things intelligible. He also compares those
spiritual things to the vast and conspicuous heavenly bodies,
as if God were the sun, and the soul the moon; for they
suppose that the moon derives its light from the sun. That
great Platonist, therefore, says that the rational soul, or rather
the intellectual soul, — in which class he comprehends the
souls of the blessed immortals who inhabit heaven, — has no
nature superior to it save God, the Creator of the world and
the soul itself, and tliat these heavenly spirits derive their
blessed life, and the light of truth, from the same source as
ourselves, agreeing with the gospel where we read, " There was
a man sent from God whose name was John ; the same came
for a witness to bear witness of that Light, that through Him

' Ps. Ixxxii. 6.

VOL. I, 2 B

386 TIIE CITY OF GOD. [cOOK X.

all miglit believe. He was iKjt that Light, but that he might
bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light which
lighteth every iiiau that cometh into the world ;"^ — a dis-
tinction which sufficiently proves that the rational or intel-
lectual soul such as John had cannot be its own light, but
needs to receive illumination from another, the true Light.
This John himself avows when he delivers liis witness : " We
have all received of His fulness."^

3. Tliat the Platonists, thoxirjh Icnowinj somethinrf of the Creator ofthfi unirers^^
have mhiunder stood the true worship of God, by giving divine honour to
angels, good or bad.

This being so, if the Platonists, or those who think with
them, knowing God, glorified Him as God and gave thanks, if
they did not become vain in their own thoughts, if they did
not originate or yield to the popular errors, they would cer-
tainly acknowledge that neither could the blessed immortals
retain, nor we miserable mortals reach, a happy condition
without worshipping the one God of gods, who is both theirs
and ours. To Him we owe the service which is called in
Greek Xarpela, whether we render it outwardly or inwardly ;
for we are all His temple, each of us severally and all of us
together, because He condescends to inhabit each individually
and the whole harmonious body, being no greater in all than
in each, since He is neither expanded nor divided. Our heart
when it rises to Him is His altar ; the priest who intercedes
for us is His Only-begotten; we sacrifice to Him bleeding
victims when we contend for His truth even unto blood ; to
Him we olfer the sweetest incense when we come before Him
burning with holy and pious love ; to Him we devote and
surrender ourselves and His gifts in us ; to Him, by solemn
feasts and on appointed days, we consecrate the memory of
His benefits, lest through the lapse of time ungi*ateful oblivion
should steal upon us ; to Him we offer on the altar of our
heart the sacrifice of humility and praise, kindled by the fire
of burning love. It is that we may see Him, so far as He
can be seen ; it is that we may cleave to Him, that we are
cleansed from all stain of sins and evil passions, and are con-
secrated in His name. For He is the fountiiin of our happi-

* Jolm i. 6-9. * Jbi<l. IG.

BOOK X.] THE TRUE WORSHIP OF GOD. 387

ness, He the end of all our desires. Being attached to Him, or
rather let me say, re-attached, — for we had detached ourselves
and lost hold of Him, — being, I say, re-attached to Him,^ we
tend towards Him by love, that we may rest in Him, and find
our blessedness by attaining that end. For our good, about
which philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else
than to be united to God. It is, if I may say so, by spiritually
embracing Him that the intellectual soul is filled and impreg-
nated with true virtues. We are enjoined to love this good
with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.
To this good we ought to be led by those who love us, and
to lead those we love. Thus are fulfilled those two command-
ments on which hang all the law and the prophets : " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy mind, and with all thy soul ;" and " Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself."^ For, that man might be intelligent in
his self-love, there was appointed for him an end to which
he might refer all his actions, that he might be blessed. For
he who loves himself wishes nothing else than this. And the
end set before him is " to draw near to God."^ And so, when
one who has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love
his neighbour as himself, what else is enjoined than that he
shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God ?
This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this right
piety, this the service due to God only. If any immortal
power, then, no matter with what virtue endowed, loves us as
himself, he must desire that we find our happiness by submit-
ting ourselves to Him, in submission to whom he himself finds
happiness. If he does not worship God, he is \vretched, be-
cause deprived of God ; if he worships God, he cannot wish
to be worshipped in God's stead. On the contrary, these
higher powers acquiesce heartily in the divine sentence in
which it is written, " He that sacrificeth unto any god, save
unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed."*

4. That sacrifice is due to the true God only.

But, putting aside for the present the other religious services

1 Augustine here remarks, in a clause that cannot be given in English, that
the word religio is derived from relifjere. — So Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 28.

2 Matt. xxii. 37-40. 3 Ps. Ixxiii. 28. ^ Ex. xxii. 20.

388 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

with which God is worshipped, certaiuly no man would dare
to say that sacrifice is due to any but God. ^Many parts,
indeed, of divine worship are unduly used in showing honour
to men, whether through an excessive humility or pernicious
flattery ; yet, while this is done, those persons who are thus
worshipped and venerated, or even adored, are reckoned no
more than human ; and who ever thought of sacrificing save
to one whom he knew, supposed, or feigned to be a god ?
And how ancient a part of God's worship sacrifice is, tliose
two brothers, Cain and Abel, sufliciently show, of whom God
rejected the elder's sacrifice, and looked favourably on the
younger's.

5. OJ the sacrificcfi which God does not require, hut icished to he ohserved for the
exhibition of those things ichich He does require.

And who is so foolish as to suppose that the things offered
to God are needed by Him for some uses of His own ? Divine
Scripture in many places explodes this idua. Xot to be weari-
some, suffice it to quote this brief saying from a psalm : " I
liave said to the Lord, Thou art my God : for Thou needest
not my goodness."^ We must believe, then, tliat God has no
need, not only of cattle, or any otlier earthly and material
thing, but even of man's righteousness, and that whatever
right worship is paid to God profits not Him, but man. For
no man would say he did a benefit to a fountain by drinking,
or to the light by seeing. And the fact that the ancient
church offered animal sacrifices, wliieh the people of God
now-a-days reads of witliout imitating, proves nothing else
than this, that tliose sacrifices signified the things which we
do for the purpose of drawing near to God, and inducing our
neiglibour to do the same. A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible
sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice. Hence that
penitent in the psalm, or it may be tlie l^salmist himself,
entreating God to be merciful to his sins, says, " If Thou
desLi'edst sacrifice, I would give it : Thou deliglitest not in
whole burnt-oflerings. Tlie sacrifice of God is a broken heart :
a lieart contrite and Inimble God will not despise."^ Observe
how, in the very words in wliitli lie is expressing God's refusal
of sacrifice, he shows that God requires sacrifice. He does

» I's. xvi. 2. »K li. IG, 17.

BOOK X.] SACRIFICES, SYMBOLICAL AND REAL. 389

not desire the sacrifice of a slaughtered beast, but He desires
the sacrifice of a contrite heart. Thus, that sacrifice which he
says God does not wish, is the symbol of the sacrifice which
God does wish. God does not wish sacrifices in the sense
in which foolish people think He wishes them, viz. to gratify
His own pleasure. For if He had not wished that the sacri-
fices He requires, as, e.g., a heart contrite and humbled by
penitent sorrow, should be symbolized by those sacrifices
which He was thought to desire because pleasant to Himself,
the old law would never have enjoined their presentation ;
and they were destined to be merged when the fit opportunity
arrived, in order that men might not suppose that the sacri-
fices themselves, rather than the things symbolized by them,
were pleasing to God or acceptable in us. Hence, in another
passage from another psalm, he says, "If I were hungry, I
would not tell thee ; for the world is mine and the fulness
thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of
goats ?"^ as if He should say. Supposing such things wxre
necessary to me, I would never ask thee for what I have in
my own hand. Then he goes on to mention what these
signify : " Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy
vows unto the Most High. And call upon me in the day of
trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." ^ So
in another prophet : " Wlierewith shall I come before the
Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? Shall I come
before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?
Hath He showed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and w^hat doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God ?"^ In the words of this
prophet, these two things are distinguished and set forth witli
sufficient explicitness, that God does not require these sacri-
fices for their own sakes, and that He does require the sacri-
fices which they symbolize. In the epistle entitled " To the
Hebrews" it is said, "To do good and to communicate, forget
not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."* And so,

1 Ps. 1. 12, 13. 2 Ps, 1. 14, 15. 3 ;^iicah vi. 6-8. "* lieb. xiii. 10.

390 THE CITY OF GOP. [book X.

wheii it is written, "I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,"^
nothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to
another ; for that whicli in common speech is called sacrifice
is only the symbol of the true sacrifice. Now mercy is the
true sacrifice, and therefore it is said, as I have just quoted,
" with such sacrifices God is well pleased." All the divine
ordinances, therefore, which we read concerning the sacrifices
in the service of the tabernacle or the temple, we are to refer
to the love of God and our neighbour. For " on these two
commandments," as it is written, " hang all the law and the
prophets."^

G. Of the true and perffct sacrijice.

Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we
may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a
reference to tliat supreme good and end in which alone we
can be truly blessed.^ And therefore even the mercy we
show to men, if it is not shown for God's sake, is not a
sacrifice. For, though made or offered by man, sacrifice is
a divine thing, as those who called it sacrijice^ meant to
indicate. Thus man liimself, consecrated in the name of God,
and vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the
world that he may live to God. For this is a part of that
mercy which each man shows to himself; as it is written,
" Have mercy on thy soul by pleasing God." * Our body, too,
is a sacrifice when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so
as we ought, for God's sake, that we may not yield our mem-
bers instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but instruments
of rigliteousness unto God.^ Exhorting to tliis sacrifice, the
apostle says, " I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." ^ If,
then, the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant
or instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used riglitly, and with
reference to God, liow much more does the soul itself become

' Hos. vi. 6. 2 .Matt. xxii. 40.

' On tlic service rendered to the Cluirch by this dofuiition, see Watcrland's
Works, V. 124.

* Literally, a sacred action. * Fcrlus. xxx. 24.

• Horn. vi. 13. ^ llvui. .\ii. 1.

BOOK X.] ■ THE TRUE SACRIFICE. 391

a sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order that, being
inflamed by the fire of His love, it may receive of His beauty
and become pleasing to Him, losing the shape of earthly
desire, and being remoulded in the image of permanent loveli-
ness ? And this, indeed, the apostle subjoins, saying, " And be
not conformed to this world ; but be ye transformed in the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God." ^ Since, therefore,
true sacrifices are works of mercy to ourselves or others, done
with a reference to God, and since works of mercy have no
other object than the relief of distress or the conferring of
happiness, and since there is no happiness apart from that
good of which it is said, " It is good for me to be very near to
God,"^ it follows tha't the whole redeemed city, that is to say,
the congregation or community of the saints, is offered to God '
as our sacrifice through the great High Priest, who offered
Himself to God in His passion for us, that we might be
members of this glorious head, according to the form of a
servant. For it was this form He offered, in this He was
offered, because it is according to it He is Mediator, in this
He is our Priest, in this the Sacrifice. Accordingly, when
the apostle had exhorted us to present our bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, our reasonable service, and
not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed in the
renewing of our mind, that we might prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God, that is to say, the true
sacrifice of ourselves, he says, "For I say, through the grace
of God which is given unto me, to every man that is among
you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to
every man the measure of faith. For, as we have many
members in one body, and all members have not the same
office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every
one members one of another, havincj jrifts differing]: according:
to the grace that is given to us." ^ This is the sacrifice of
Christians : we, being many, are one body in Christ. And this
also is the sacrifice which the Church continually celebrates in
the sacrament of the altar, known to the faithful, in which

1 Fvom. xii. 2. 2 Ps, ixxiii. 28. =• Iloiii. xii. 3-6.

392 THE CITY OF flOD. [dOOK X.

she teaches that she herself is offered in the offering she
makes to God.

7. Of the love of the holy angels, which prompts them to desire that ice worship

the one true God, and not themselves.

It is very right that these blessed and immortal spirits,
who inhabit celestial dwellings, and rejoice in the communica-
tions of their Creator's fulness, firm in His eternity, assured
in His trutli, holy by His grace, since they compassionately
and tenderly regard us miserable mortals, and wish us to
become immortal and happy, do not desire us to sacrifice to
themselves, but to Him whose sacrifice they know themselves
to be in common with us. For we and they together are the
one city of God, to which it is said in the psalm, " Glorious
things are spoken of thee, 0 city of God ; " ^ the human part
sojourning here below, the angelic aiding from above. For
from that heavenly city, in which God's will is the intelligible
and unchangeable law, from that heavenly council-chamber, —
for they sit in counsel regarding us, — that holy Scripture, de-
scended to us by the ministry of angels, in which it is written,
" He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord onh',
he shall be utterly destroyed,"" — this Scripture, this law, these
precepts, have been confirmed by such miracles, that it is suffi-
ciently evident to whom these immortal and blessed spirits,
who desire us to be like themselves, wish us to sacrifice.

8. Of the miracles which God has condescended to adhihit, through the ministrij

of angels, to JI is promises for the confirmation of the faith of the godbj.

I should seem tedious were I to recount all the ancient
miracles, which were wrought in attestation of God's pro-
mises which He made to Abraham thousands of years ago,
that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed.^
For who can but marvel that Abraham's barren wife should
have given birth to a son at an age when not even a prolific
woman CDuld bear children ; or, again, that when Abraham
sacrificed, a flame from heaven should have run between the
divided parts ; * or that the angels in human form, whom he
had hospitably entertained, and who had renewed God's pro-

1 Ps. Ixxxvii. 3. « Ex. xxii. 20. ' Gen. xviii. 18.

* Gen. XV. 17. In liis Retractations, ii. 43, Augnstine says that lie shouKl not
have spoken of this a.s miraculous, because it was nn appearance seen in sleep.

BOOK X.] MIKACLES. 393

mise of offspring, should also have predicted the destruction
of Sodom by fire from heaven ; ^ and that his nephew Lot
should have been rescued from Sodom by the angels as the
fire was just descending, while his wife, who looked back as
she went, and was immediately turned into salt, stood as a
sacred beacon warning us that no one who is being saved
should long for what he is leaving ? How striking also were
the wonders done by Moses to rescue God's people from the
yoke of slavery in Egypt, when the magi of the Pharaoh, that
is, the king of Egypt, who tyrannized over this people, were
suffered to do some wonderful things that they might be
vanquished all the more signally ! They did these things by
the magical arts and incantations to which the evil spirits or
demons are addicted ; while Moses, having as much greater
power as he had right on his side, and having the aid of
angels, easily conquered them in the name of the Lord who
made heaven and earth. And, in fact, the magicians failed
at the third plague ; whereas Moses, dealing out the miracles
delegated to him, brought ten plagues upon the land, so that
the hard hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians yielded, and
the people w^ere let go. But, quickly repenting, and essay-
ing to overtake the departing Hebrews, who had crossed the
sea on dry ground, they were covered and overwhelmed in
the returning waters. What shall I say of those frequent
and stupendous exhibitions of divine power, while the people
were conducted throucfh the wilderness ? — of the w^aters which
could not be drunk, but lost their bitterness, and quenched
the thirsty, when at God's command a piece of wood was cast
into them ? of the manna that descended from heaven to
appease their hunger, and which begat worms and putrefied
when any one collected more than the appointed quantity,
and yet, though double was gathered on the day before the
Sabbath (it not being lawful to gather it on that day), re-
mained fresh ? of the birds which filled the camp, and turned
appetite into satiety when they longed for flesh, which it
seemed impossible to supply to so vast a population ? of the
enemies who met them, and opposed their passage with arms,
and were defeated without the loss of a sincjle Hebrew, when

^ Gen. xviii.

304 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

Moses prayed with his hands extended in the form of a cross ?
of the seditious persons who arose among God's people, and
separated themselves from the divinely-ordered community,
and were swallowed up alive by the earth, a visible token of
an invisible punishment ? of the rock struck with the rod,
and pouring out waters more than enough for all the host ? of
the deadly serpents' bites, sent in just punishment of sin, but
healed by looking at the lifted brazen serpent, so that not only
were the tormented people healed, but a symbol of the cruci-
fixion of death set before them in this destruction of death by
death ? It was this serpent wliich was presei"ved in memory
of this event, and was afterwards worshipped by the mistaken
people as an idol, and was destroyed by the pious and God-
fearing king Hezekiah, much to his credit.

9. Of the illicit arts connected tcith demonolatrn, and of ichich the Platonist
Porphyry adopts some, and discards others.

These miracles, and many others of the same nature, which
it were tedious to mention, were wrought for the purpose of
commending the worship of the one true God, and prohibiting
the worship of a multitude of false gods. Moreover, they were
wrought by simple faith and godly confidence, not by the in-
cantations and charms composed under the influence of a
criminal tampering with the unseen world, of an art wliich
they call either magic, or by the more abominable title necro-
mancy,^ or the more honourable designation theurgy ; for they
wish to discriminate between those whom the people call
magicians, who practise necromancy, and are addicted to illicit
arts and condemned, and those others Avho seem to them to
be worthy of praise for their practice of theurgy, — the truth,
however, being that both classes are the slaves of tlie deceit-
ful rites of the demons whom tlicy invoke under tlie names
of angels.

For even Porphyry promises some kind of purgation of the
soul by tlie lielp of theurgy, though he does so with some
hesitation and shame, and denies that this art can secure to
any one a return to God ; so that you can detect his opinion
vacillating between the profession of philosophy and an art
which he feels to be presumptuous and sacrilegious. For at

^ Coctia.

BOOK X.] THEURGY. 395

one time he warns us to avoid it as deceitful, and prohibited
by law, and dangerous to those who practise it ; then again,
as if in deference to its advocates, he declares it useful for
cleansing one part of the soul, not, indeed, the intellectual part,
by which the truth of things intelligible, which have no sensible
images, is recognised, but the spiritual part, which takes cog-
nizance of the images of things material. This part, he says,
is prepared and fitted for intercourse with spirits and angels,
and for the vision of the gods, by the help of certain theurgic
consecrations, or, as they call them, mysteries. He acknow-
ledges, however, that these theurgic mysteries impart to the
intellectual soul no such purity as fits it to see its God, and
recognise the things that truly exist. And from this acknow-
ledgment we may infer what kind of gods these are, and what
kind of vision of them is imparted by theurgic consecrations,
if by it one cannot see the things which truly exist. He says,
further, that the rational, or, as he prefers calling it, the intel-
lectual soul, can pass into the heavens without the spiritual
part being cleansed by theurgic art, and that this art cannot
so purify the spiritual part as to give it entrance to immortality
and eternity. And therefore, although he distinguishes angels
from demons, asserting that the habitation of the latter is in
the air, while the former dwell in the ether and empyrean,
and although he advises us to cultivate the friendship of some
demon, who may be able after our death to assist us, and
elevate us at least a little above the earth, — for he owns that
it is by another way we must reach the heavenly society of
the angels, — he at the same time distinctly warns us to avoid
the society of demons, saying that the soul, expiating its sin
after death, execrates the worship of demons by whom it was
entangled. And of theurgy itself, though he recommends it
as reconciling angels and demons, he cannot deny that it treats
with powers which either themselves envy the soul its purity,
or serve the arts of those who do envy it. He complains of
this through the mouth of some Chakhean or other : " A good
man in Chaldcea complains," he says, " that his most strenuous
efforts to cleanse his soul were frustrated, because anotlier man,
who had influence in these matters, and wlio envied him
purity, had prayed to the powers, and bound them by his con-

30 C THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK X.

juring not to listen to his request. Therefore," adds Porphyry,
" what the one man bound, the other could not loose." And
from tliis he concludes that theurgy is a craft which accom-
plishes not only good but evil among gods and men ; and that
the gods also liave passions, and are perturbed and agitated
by the emotions wliich Apulcius attributed to demons and
men, but from which lie preserved the gods by that sublimity of
residence, which, in common with Plato, he accorded to them.

10. Concerning theurgy, icJdch promi<ies a delusive purification of the soul
by the invocation of demons.

But here we have another and a much more learned Plato-
nist than Apulcius, Porph}Ty, to wit, asserting that, by I know
not what theurgy, even tlie gods themselves are subjected to
passions and perturbations ; for liy adjurations they were so
bound and terrified that they could not confer purity of soul,
— were so terrified by him who imposed on them a wicked
command, that they could not by the same theurgy be freed
from that terror, and fulfil tlie righteous behest of him who
prayed to them, or do the good he sought. AVlio does not see
that all these things are fictions of deceiving demons, unless
he be a ^\Tetched slave of theirs, and an alien from the grace of
the true Liberator ? For if the Chakhcan had been dealing
with good gods, certainly a well-disposed man, who sought to
purify his own soul, would have had more influence with them
than an evil-disposed man seeking to hinder him. Or, if the
gods were just, and considered the man unworthy of tlie
purification he sought, at all events they should not have been
terrified by an envious person, nor hindered, as Porphyry avows,
by the tear ot a stronger deity, but should have simply denied
the boon on their own free judgment. And it is surprising
that that well-disposed Chaldiian, who desired to purify his
soul by theurgical rites, found no superior deity who could
either terrify the frightened gods still more, and force them to
confer the boon, or compose their fears, and so enable them to
do good without compulsion, — even supposing that the good
theurgist had no rites by which he himself might purge away
the taint of fear from the gods whom he invoked for the puri-
fication of his own soul. And why is it that there is a god
who has power to terrify the inferior gods, and none who has

BOOK X.] PORPHYEY'S LETTER TO ANEBO. 397

power to free tliem from fear ? Is there found a god who listens
to the envious man, and frightens the gods from doing good ?
and is there not found a god who listens to the wxll-disposed
man, and removes the fear of the gods that they may do him
good ? 0 excellent theurgy ! 0 admirable purification of the
soul ! — a theurgy in which the violence of an impure envy has
more influence than the entreaty of purity and holiness.
Eather let us abominate and avoid the deceit of such wicked
spirits, and listen to sound doctrine. As to those wdio per-
form these filthy cleansings by sacrilegious rites, and see in
their initiated state (as he further tells us, though we may
question tliis vision) certain wonderfully lovely appearances
of angels or gods, this is what the apostle refers to when he
speaks of " Satan transforming himself into an angel of liglit." ^
For these are the delusive appearances of that spirit who longs
to entangle wretched souls in the deceptive worship of many
and false gods, and to turn them aside from the true worship
of the true God, by whom alone they are cleansed and healed,
and who, as was said of Proteus, " turns himself into all
shapes,"^ equally hurtful, whether he assaults us as an enemy,
or assumes the disguise of a friend.

11. Of Porphyrifs epistle to Aneho, in loliich he ashsfor information about
the differences among demons.

It was a better tone which Porphyry adopted in his letter
to Anebo the Egy]3tian, in wdiich, assuming the character of
an inquirer consulting him, he unmasks and explodes these
sacrilegious arts. In that letter, indeed, he repudiates all
demons, wdiom he maintains to be so foolish as to be attracted
by the sacrificial vapours, and therefore residing not in the
ether, but in the air beneath the moon, and indeed in the
moon itself. Yet he has not the boldness to attribute to all
the demons all the deceptions and malicious and foolisli
practices which justly move his indignation. For, though he
acknowledges th^t as a race demons are foolish, he so far ac-
commodates himself to popular ideas as to call some of them
benignant demons. He expresses surprise that sacrifices not
only incline the gods, but also compel and force them to do
what men wish ; and he is at a loss to understand how the
' 2 Cor. xi. 14. ' Virgil, Georg. iv. 411.

398 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

sun and moon, and other visible celestial bodies, — for bodies he
does not doubt that they are, — are considered gods, if the gods
are distinguished from the demons by their incorporeality ; also,
if they are gods, how some are called beneficent and others
hurtful, and how they, being corporeal, are numbered with the
gods, who are incorporeal. He inquires further, and still as
one in doubt, whetlier diviners and wonderworkers are men of
unusually powerful souls, or wlietlier the power to do these
things is communicated by spirits from without. He inclines
to the latter opinion, on tlie ground that it is by the use of
stones and herbs that they lay spells on people, and open
closed doors, and do similar wonders. And on this account,
he says, some suppose that there is a race of beings whose
property it is to listen to men, — a race deceitful, full of con-
trivances, capable of assuming all forms, simulating gods,
demons, and dead men, — and that it is this race which brings
about all these things wliich have the appearance of good or
evil, but that what is really good they never help us in, and
are indeed unacquainted with, for they make wickedness easy,
but throw obstacles in the path of those who eagerly follow
virtue ; and that thay are filled with pride and rashness,
delight in sacrificial odours, are taken with flattery. These and
the other characteristics of this race of deceitful and malicious
spirits, who come into the souls of men and delude their senses,
both in sleep and waking, he describes not as things of which
he is himself convinced, but only with so much suspicion and
doubt as to cause him to speak of them as commonly received
opinions. We should sympathize with this gi^eat philosopher
in the difficulty he experienced in acquainting himself with
and confidently assailing the whole fraternity of devils, which
any Christian old woman would unhesitatingly describe and
most unreservedly detest. Perhaps, however, he shrank from
offending Anebo, to whom he was writing, himself the most
eminent patron of tliese mysteries, or the others who marvelled
at these magical feats as divine works, and closely allied to
the worsliip of the gods.

Hcnvcver, he pursues this subject, and, still in the character
of an inquirer, mentions some things which no sober judgment
could attribute to any but malicious and deceitful powers.

BOOK X.] PORPHYRY TO ANEBO. 399

He asks why, after the better class of spirits have been in-
voked, the worse should be commanded to perform the wicked
desires of men ; why they do not hear a man who has just left
a woman's embrace, while they themselves make no scruple of
tempting men to incest and adultery ; why their priests are
commanded to abstain from animal food for fear of being pol-
luted by the corporeal exhalations, while they themselves are
attracted by the fumes of sacrifices and other exhalations ;
why the initiated are forbidden to touch a dead body, while
their mysteries are celebrated almost entirely by means of dead
bodies ; why it is that a man addicted to any vice should utter
threats, not to a demon or to the soul of a dead man, but to
the sun and moon, or some of the heavenly bodies, which he
intimidates by imaginary terrors, that he may wring from them
a real boon, — for he threatens that he will demolish the sky,
and such like impossibilities, — that those gods, being alarmed,
hke silly children, with imaginary and absurd threats, may
do what they are ordered. Porphyry further relates that a
man Chseremon, profoundly versed in these sacred or rather
sacrilegious mysteries, had written that the famous Egyptian
mysteries of Isis and her husband Osiris had very great in-
fluence with the gods to compel them to do what they were
ordered, when he who used the spells threatened to divulge
or do away with these mysteries, and cried with a threatening
voice that he would scatter the members of Osiris if they
neglected his orders. Not without reason is Porphyry sur-
prised that a man should utter such wild and empty threats
against the gods, — not against gods oi no account, but against
the heavenly gods, and those that shine with sidereal light, —
and that these threats should be effectual to constrain them
with resistless power, and alarm them so that they fulfil his
wishes. Not without reason does he, in the character of an
inquirer into the reasons of these surprising things, give it to
be understood that they are done by that race of spirits which
he previously described as if quoting other people's opinions, —
spirits who deceive not, as he said, by nature, but by their
own corruption, and who simulate gods and dead men, but
not, as he said, demons, for demons they really are. As to
his idea that by means of herbs, and stones, and animals, and

400 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

certain incantations and noises, and drawings, sometimes fan-
ciful, and sometimes copied from the motions of the heavenly
bodies, men create upon earth powers capable of bringing,'
about various results, all that is only the mystification whicli
these demons practise on those who are subject to them, for
the sake of furnishinc: themselves with merriment at the ex-
pense of their dupes. Either, then. Porphyry was sincere in
his doubts and inquiries, and mentioned these things to de-
monstrate and put beyond question that they were the work,
not of powers which aid us in obtaining life, but of deceitful
demons ; or, to take a more favourable view of the philosopher,
he adopted this method with the Egyptian who was wedded to
these errors, and was proud of them, that he might not offend
him by assuming the attitude of a teacher, nor discompose his
mind by the altercation of a professed assailant, but, by as-
suming the character of an inquirer, and the humble attitude
of one who was anxious to learn, might turn his attention
to these matters, and show how worthy they are to be despised
and relinquished. Towards the conclusion of his letter, he
requests Anebo to inform him what the Egyptian wisdom in-
dicates as the way to blessedness. But as to those who hold
intercourse with the gods, and pester them only for the sake
of finding a runaway slave, or acquiring property, or making a
bargain of a marriage, or such things, he declares that their
2)retensions to wisdom are vain. He adds that these same
gods, even granting that on other points their utterances were
true, were yet so ill-advised and unsatisfactory in their dis-
closures about blessedness, that they cannot be either gods or
good demons, but are either that spirit who is called the de-
ceiver, or mere fictions of the imagination.

12. Of the miracles wroufjht by the true God through the 7n'iiii^(r!/ of the
holy angels.

Since by means of these arts wonders are done wliicli quite
surpass human power, what choice have we but to believe that
these predictions and operations, whicli seem to be miraculous
and divine, and which at the same time form no part of the wor-
ship of the one God, in adherence to whom, as the Platonists
themselves abundantly testify, all blessedness consists, are the
pastime of wicked spirits, who thus seek to seduce and hinder

BOOK X.] MAX THE GREATEST MIRACLE. 401

the truly godly ? On the other hand, we cannot but believe
that all miracles, whether wrought by angels or by other
means, so long as they are so done as to commend the worship
and rehgion of the one God in wdiom alone is blessedness, are
wrought by those who love us in a true and godly sort, or
through their means, God Himself working in them. For we
cannot listen to those who maintain that the invisible God
works no visible miracles ; for even they believe that He
made the w^orld, which surely they will not deny to be visible.
Whatever marvel happens in this world, it is certainly less
marvellous than this whole world itself, — I mean the sky and
earth, and all that is in them, — and these God certainly
made. But, as the Creator Himself is hidden and incom-
prehensible to man, so also is the manner of creation.
Although, therefore, the standing miracle of this visible world
is little thought of, because always before us, yet, when we
arouse ourselves to contemplate it, it is a greater miracle than
the rarest and most unheard-of marvels. For man himself is
a greater miracle than any miracle done through his instrumen-
tality. Therefore God, who made the visible heaven and earth,
does not disdain to work ^dsible miracles in heaven or earth,
that He may thereby a^^-aken the soul which is immersed in
things visible to w^orship Himself, the Invisible. But the place
and time of these miracles are dependent on His unchangeable
will, in which things future are ordered as if already they were
accomplished. For He moves things temporal without Himself
moving in time. He does not in one way know things that
are to be, and, in another, things that have been ; neither does
He listen to those wdio pray otherwise than as He sees those
that will pray. For, even when His angels hear us, it is He
Himself who hears us in them, as in His true temple not
made with hands, as in those men who are His saints ; and
His answers, though accomplished in time, have been arranged
by His eternal appointment.

13. Of the invisible God, who Jias often made Himself visible, not as He really is,
but as the beholders could bear the sight.

Neither need we be surprised that God, invisible as He is,
should often have appeared visibly to the patriarchs. For
as the sound which communicates the thouglit conceived in

VOL. L 2 C

402 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

the silence of the mind is not the thought itself, so the form
by which God, invisible in His own nature, became visible,
was not God Himself. Nevertlieless it is He Himself who
was seen under that form, as that thought itself is heard in
the sound of the voice ; and the patriarchs recognised that,
though the bodily form was not God, they saw the invisible
God. For, though Moses conversed with God, yet he said,
' If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thyself, that
I may see and know Thee.' ^ And as it was fit that the law,
which was given, not to one man or a few enlightened men,
but to the whole of a populous nation, should be accompanied
by awe-inspiring signs, great marvels were WTOught, by the
ministry of angels, before the people on the mount where the
law was being given to them through one man, while the
multitude behold the awful appearances. For the people of
Israel believed Moses, not as the Lacedaemonians believed their
Lycurgus, because he had received from Jupiter or Apollo the
laws he gave them. For when the law which enjuined the
worship of one God was given to the people, marvellous signs
and earthquakes, such as the divine wisdom judged sufficient,
were brought about in the sight of all, that they might know
that it was the Creator who coidd thus use creation to pro-
mulgate His law.

11. That the one God is to be worshipped not only for the sake of eternal
blessings, but also in connection with temporal j^rosperity, because all
things are regulated by His providence.

The education of the human race, represented by the people
of God, has advanced, lilvc that of an individual, through cer-
tain epochs, or, as it were, ages, so that it might gradually rise
from earthly to heavenly things, and from the visible to the
invisible. This object was kept so clearly in view, that, even
in the period when temporal rewards were promised, the one
God was presented as the object of worship, that men might
not acknowledge any other than the true Creator and Lord of
the spirit, even in connection with the earthly blessings of
this transitory life. For he who denies that all things, which
either angels or men can give us, are in the hand of the one
Aluiighty, is a madman. The Platonist Plotiuus discourses

^ Ex. x.\.\iii. 13.

BOOK X.] THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS. 403

concerning providence, and, from the beauty of flowers and
foliage, proves that from the supreme God, whose beauty is
unseen and ineffable, providence reaches down even to these
eartlily things here below ; and he argues that all these frail
and perishing things could not have so exquisite and elaborate
a beauty, were they not fashioned by Him whose unseen and
unchangeable beauty continually pervades all things.-^ This
is proved also by the Lord Jesus, where He says, ' Consider
the lilies, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothe the grass of
the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven,
how much more shall He clothe you, 0 ye of little faith ! ' ^
It was best, therefore, that the soul of man, which was still
weakly desiring earthly things, should be accustomed to seek
from God alone even these petty temporal boons, and the
earthly necessaries of this transitory life, w^hich are contemp-
tible in comparison with eternal blessings, in order that the
desire even of these things might not draw it aside from the
worship of Him, to whom we come by despising and forsaking
such tilings.

15. Of the ministry of the holy angels, by which they fulfil the j/rovidence

of God.

And so it has pleased Divine Providence, as I have said,
and as we read in the Acts of the Apostles,^ that the law
enjoining the worship of one God should be given by the
disposition of angels. But among them the person of God
Himself visibly appeared, not, indeed, in His proper substance,
which ever remains invisible to mortal eyes, but by the in-
fallible signs furnished by creation in obedience to its Creator.
He made use, too, of the words of human speech, uttering
them syllable by syllable successively, though in His own
nature He speaks not in a bodily but in a spiritual way;
not to sense, but to the mind ; not in words that occupy
time, but, if I may so say, eternally, neither beginning to
speak nor coming to an end. And what He says is accurately
heard, not by the bodily but by the mental ear of His ministers
and messengers, who are immortally blessed in the enjoyment

1 riotin. Ennead. III. ii. 13. « Matt. vi. 28-30. » Acts vii. 53.

404 THE CITY OF COT). [BOOK X.

of His unchangeable truth ; and the directions which they in
some ineffable way receive, they execute without delay or
difficulty in the sensible and visible world. And this law
was given in conformity with the age of the world, and con-
tained at the first earthly promises, as I have said, which,
however, symbolized eternal ones ; and these eternal blessings
few understood, though many took a part in the celebration
of their visible signs. Nevertheless, with one consent both
the words and the visible rites of that law enjoin tlie worship
of one God, — not one of a crowd of gods, but Him who made
heaven and earth, and every soul and every spirit which is
other than Himself. He created ; all else was created ; and,
both for being and well-being, all things need Him who
created them.

IG. Whether those angeU who demand that we pay them divine honour, or
those xoho teach us to render holy service, not to themselves, but to God,
are to be trusted about the toay to life eternal.

"Wliat angels, then, are we to believe in this matter of blessed
and eternal life? — those who wish to be worshipped with religious
rites and observances, and require that men sacrifice to them ;
or those who say that all this worship is due to one God, the
Creator, and teach us to render it with true piety to Him, by
the vision of whom they are themselves already blessed, and
in wdiom they promise that we shall be so ? For that vision
of God is the beauty of a vision so great, and is so infinitely
desirable, that Plotinus does not hesitate to say that he who
enjoys all other blessings in alnindance, and has not this, is
supremely miserable.^ Since, therefore, miracles are wrought
by some angels to induce us to worship this God, by others,
to induce us to worship themselves ; and since the former forbid
us to worsliip these, while the latter dare not forbid us to
worship Gdd, which are we to listen to? Let the Platonists
reply, or any philosophers, or the theurgists, or rather, ;?c?n-
urjists^ — for this name is good enough for those wlio practise
such arts. In short, let all men answer, — if, at least, tliere
survives in them any spark of that natural perception which,
as rational beings, they possess wlien created, — let tliem, I say,
tell us whether we should sacrifice to the gods or angels who
1 Ennead. I. vi. 7. * Meaning, ofTicious meddlera.

BOOK X.] APOLOGETIC VALUE OF MIRACLES. 405

order us to sacrifice to tliem, or to that One to whom we are
ordered to sacrifice by those who forbid us to worship either
themselves or these others. If neither the one party nor the
other had wrought miracles, but had merely uttered commands,
the one to sacrifice to themselves, the other forbidding that,
and ordering us to sacrifice to God, a godly mind would have
been at no loss to discern which command proceeded from
proud arrogance, and which from true religion. I will say
more. If miracles had been wrought only by those who demand
sacrifice for themselves, while those who forbade this, and
enjoined sacrificing to the one God only, thought fit entirely
to forego the use of visible miracles, the authority of the latter
was to be preferred by all who would use, not their eyes only,
but their reason. But since God, for the sake of commending
to us the oracles of His truth, has, by means of these immortal
messengers, who proclaim His majesty and not their own pride,
wrought mu'acles of surpassing grandeur, certainty, and dis-
tinctness, in order that the weak among the godly might not
be drawn aw^ay to false religion by those w^ho require us to
sacrifice to them and endeavour to convince us by stupendous
appeals to our senses, w^ho is so utterly unreasonable as not to
choose and follow the truth, when he finds that it is heralded
by even more strildng evidences than falsehood ?

As for those miracles which history ascribes to the gods
of the heathen, — I do not refer to those prodigies which at
intervals happen from some unknown physical causes, and
which are arranged and appointed by Divine Providence, such
as monstrous births, and unusual meteorological phenomena,
whether startling only, or also injurious, and which are said
to be brought about and removed by communication with
demons, and by their most deceitful craft, — but I refer to
these prodigies which manifestly enough are wrought by their
power and force, as, that the household gods which iEneas
carried from Troy in his flight moved from place to place ;
that Tarquin cut a whetstone with a razor ; that the Epidaurian
serpent attached himself as a companion to iEsculapius on his
voyage to Eome ; that the ship in which the image of the
Phrygian mother stood, and which could not be moved by a
host of men and oxen, was moved by one weak woman, ^^•ho

406 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

attached her girdle to the vessel and drew it, as proof of her
chastity; that a vestal, whose virginity was questioned, removed
the suspicion by carrying from the Tiber a sieve full of water
without any of it dropping : these, then, and the like, are by
no means to be ^compared for greatness and virtue to those
which, we read, were -svTOught among God's people. How
much less can we compare those marvels, which even the laws
of heathen nations prohibit and punish, — I mean the magical
and theurgic marvels, of which the great part are merely
illusions practised upon the senses, as the drawing down of
the moon, " that," as Lucan says, " it may shed a stronger
influence on the plants ?"^ And if some of these do seem to
equal those which are wrought by the godly, the end for
wliich they are wrought distinguishes the two, and shows that
ours are incomparably the more excellent. For those miracles
commend the worship of a plurality of gods, who deser^'e
worship the less the more they demand it ; but these of ours
commend the worship of the one God, who, both by the testi-
mony of His own Scriptures, and by the eventual abolition of
sacrifices, proves that He needs no such offerings. If, there-
fore, any angels demand sacrifice for themselves, we must
prefer those who demand it, not for themselves, but for God,
the Creator of all, whom they serve. For thus they prove
how sincerely they love us, since they wish by sacrifice to
subject us, not to themselves, but to Him by the contemplation
of whom they themselves are blessed, and to bring us to Him
from whom they themselves have never strayed. If, on the
other hand, any angels wish us to sacrifice, not to one, but to
many, not, indeed, to themselves, but to the gods whose angels
they are, we must in this case also prefer tliose who are the
angels of the one God of gods, and who so bid us to worsliip
Him as to preclude our worshipping any other. r>ut, further,
if it be the case, as their pride and deceitfulness rather indi-
cate, that they are neither good angels nor the angels of good
gods, but wicked demons, who wish sacrifice to be paid, not to
the one only and supreme God, but to themselves, what better
protection against them can we choo.se than tliat of the one
God whom the good angels serve, the angels who bid us

^ Pharmi vi. 503.

BOOK X.] THE APtK OF THE TESTIMONY. 407

sacrifice, not to themselves, but to Him whose sacrifice we
ourselves ought to he ?

17. Concerning the ark of the covenant, and the miraculous signs whereby God
authenticated the law and the promise.

On this account it was that the law of God, given by the
disposition of angels, and which commanded that the one God
of gods alone receive sacred worship, to the exclusion of all
others, was deposited in the ark, called the ark of the testi-
mony. By tliis name it is sufficiently indicated, not that
God, who was worshipped by all those rites, was shut up and
enclosed in that place, though His responses emanated from
it along with signs appreciable by the senses, but that His
will was declared from that throne. The law itself, too, was
engraven on tables of stone, and, as I have said, deposited in
the ark, which the priests carried with due reverence during
the sojourn in the wilderness, along with the tabernacle, which
was in like manner called the tabernacle of the testimony;
and there was then an accompanying sign, which appeared as
a cloud by day and as a fire by night; when the cloud
moved, the camp was shifted, and where it stood the camp
was pitched. Besides these signs, and the voices which pro-
ceeded from the place where the ark was, there were other
miraculous testimonies to the law. For when the ark was
carried across Jordan, on the entrance to the land of promise,
the upper part of the river stopped in its course, and the
lower part flowed on, so as to present both to the ark and the
people dry ground to pass over. Then, when it was carried
seven times round the first hostile and polytheistic city they
came to, its walls suddenly fell down, though assaulted by no
hand, struck by no battering-ram. Afterwards, too, when
they were now resident in the land of promise, and the ark
had, in punishment of their sin, been taken by their enemies,
its captors triumphantly placed it in the temple of their
favourite god, and left it shut up there, but, on opening the
temple next day, they found the image they used to pray to
fallen to the ground and shamefully shattered. Then, being
themselves alarmed by portents, and still more shamefully
punished, they restored the ark of tlie testimony to tlie people
from whom they had taken it. And what was the manner of

408 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

its restoration ? They placed it on a wagon, and yoked to
it cows from which they had taken the calves, and let
them choose their own course, expecting that in this way the
diWne will would be indicated ; and the cows, without any
man driving or directing them, steadily pursued the way to
the Hebrews, without regarding the lowing of their calves,
and thus restored the ark to its worshippers. To God these
and such like wonders are small, but they are mighty to terrify
and give wholesome instruction to men. For if pliilosophers,
and especially the Platonists, are with justice esteemed wiser
than other men, as I have just been mentioning, because they
taught that even these earthly and insignificant things are
ruled by Divine Providence, inferring this from the numberless
beauties which are observable not only in the bodies of animals,
but even in plants and grasses, how much more plainly do
these things attest the presence of divinity which happen at
the time predicted, and in which that religion is commended
which forbids the offering of sacrifice to any celestial, terrestrial,
or infernal being, and commands it to be offered to God only,
who alone blesses us by His love for us, and by our love to
Him, and who, by arranging the appointed times of those
sacrifices, and by predicting that they were to pass into a better
sacrifice by a better Priest, testified that He has no appetite
for these sacrifices, but through them indicated others of more
substantial blessing, — and all this not that He Himself may
be glorified by these honours, but that we may be stirred up
to worship and cleave to Him, being inflamed by His love,
wliich is our advantage rather than His ?

18, Agaimt those who deny that the books of the Church are to be believed about
the miracles whereby the people of Qod xcere educated.

Will some one say that these miracles are false, that they
never happened, and that the records of them are lies ? Who-
ever says so, and asserts that in such matters no records what-
ever can be crcditcil, may also say that there are no gods who
care for huin;iii affairs. For they have induced men to wor-
ship them only by means of miraculous works, which the
lieatlien histories testify, and by which the gods have made a
display of their own power rather than done any real service.
This is the reason why we have not undertaken in this work.

BOOK X.] CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES, '409

of which we are now writing the tenth book, to refute those
who either deny that there is any divine power, or contend
that it does not interfere with human affairs, but those who
prefer their own god to our God, the Founder of the holy and
most glorious city, not knowing that He is also the invisible
and unchangeable Founder of this visible and changing world,
and the truest bestower of the blessed life which resides not
in things created, but in Himself For thus speaks His most
trustworthy prophet : " It is good for me to be united to God."^
Among philosophers it is a question, what is that end and
good to the attainment of which all our duties are to have a
relation ? The Psalmist did not say. It is good for me to have
great wealth, or to wear imperial insignia, purple, sceptre,
and diadem ; or, as some even of the philosophers have not
blushed to say, It is good for me to enjoy sensual pleasure ;
or, as the better men among them seemed to say. My good is
my spiritual strength ; but, " It is good for me to be united
to God." This he had learned from Him whom the holy
angels, with the accompanying witness of miracles, presented
as the sole object of worship. And hence he himself became
the sacrifice of God, whose spiritual love inflamed him, and
into whose ineffable and incorporeal embrace he yearned to
cast himself. Moreover, if the worshippers of many gods
(whatever kind of gods they fancy their own to be) believe
that the miracles recorded in their civil histories, or in the
books of magic, or of the more respectable theurgy, v/ere
wrought by these gods, what reason have they for refusing
to believe the miracles recorded in those writings, to which
we owe a credence as much greater as He is greater to whom
alone these writings teach us to sacrifice ?

19. On the reasonableness of offering, as the true religion teaches, a visible
sacrifice to the one true and invisible God.

As to those who think that these visible sacrifices are suit-
ably offered to other gods, but that invisible sacrifices, the
graces of purity of mind and holiness of will, should be offered,
as greater and better, to the invisible God, Himself greater
and better than all others, they must be oblivious that these
visible sacrifices are signs of the invisible, as the words we

' Ps. Ixxiii. 28.

4 1 0 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

utter are the signs of things. And therefore, as in prayer or
praise we direct intelligible words to Him to whom in our
heart we offer the very feelings we are expressing, so we are
to understand that in sacrifice we offer visible sacrifice only
to Him to whom in our heart we ought to present ourselves
an invisible sacrifice. It is then tliat the an<]:els, and all those
superior powers who are mighty by their goodness and piety,
regard us with pleasure, and rejoice with us and assist us to
the utmost of their power. But if we offer such worship to
them, they decline it; and when on any mission to men they
become visible to the senses, they positively forbid it. Ex-
amples of this occur in holy writ. Some fancied they should,
by adoration or sacrifice, pay the same honour to angels as is
due to God, and were prevented from doing so by the angels
themselves, and ordered to render it to Him to whom alone
they know it to be due. And the holy angels have in this
been imitated by holy men of God. For Paul and Barnabas,
when they had A^TOught a miracle of healing in Lycaonia, were
thought to be gods, and the Lycaonians desired to sacrifice to
them, and they humbly and piously declined this honour, and
announced to them the God in whom they should believe.
And those deceitful and proud spirits, who exact worship, do
so simply because they know it to be due to the true God.
For tliat which they take pleasure in is not, as Porphyry says
and some fancy, the smell of the victims, but divine honours.
They have, in fact, plenty odours on all hands, and if they
wished more, they could provide them for themselves. But
the spirits who arrogate to themselves divinity are deliglited
not with the smoke of carcases, but with the suppliant spirit
which they deceive and hold in subjection, and hinder from
drawing near to God, preventing him from offering himself in
sacrifice to God by inducing liim to sacrifice to others.

20. Of the supreme and true sacrifice which teas ejected by the Mediator hetxcten

God and vien.

And hence that tnie Mediator, in so fir as, by assuming
the form of a servant, He became the Mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, though in the form of God
He received sacrifice together witli tlie Fatlior, with whom He
is one God, vet in the form of a servant He chose rather to

BOOK X.] DEMONS OVERCOME BY MARTYRS. 411

be than to receive a sacrifice, that not even by this instance
any one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice should
be rendered to any creature. Thus He is both the Priest
who offers and the Sacrifice ofiered. And He designed that
there should be a daily sign of this in the sacrifice of the
Church, which, being His body, learns to offer herself through
Him. Of this true Sacrifice the ancient sacrifices of the saints
were the various and numerous signs ; and it was thus variously
figured, just as one thing is signified by a variety of words,
that there may be less weariness when we speak of it much.
To this supreme and true sacrifice all false sacrifices have
given place.

21. Of the power delegated to demons for the trial and glorification of the saint n,
who conquer not by propitiating the spirits of the air, but by abiding in
God.

The power delegated to the demons at certain appointed
and well-adjusted seasons, that they may give expression
to their hostility to the city of God by stirring up against
it the men who are under their influence, and may not
only receive sacrifice from those who willingly offer it,
but may also extort it from the unwilling by violent per-
secution ; — this power is found to be not merely harmless, but
even useful to the Church, completing as it does the number
of martyrs, whom the city of God esteems as all the more
illustrious and honoured citizens, because they have striven
even to blood against the sin of impiety. If the ordinary
language of the Church allowed it, we might more elegantly
call these men our heroes. For this name is said to be
derived from Juno, who in Greek is called Here, and hence,
according to the Greek myths, one of her sons was called
Heros. And these fables mystically signified that Juno was
mistress of the air, which they suppose to be inhabited by
the demons and the heroes, understanding by heroes the souls
of the well-deserving dead. But for a quite opposite reason
would we call our martyrs heroes, — supposing, as I said, that
the usage of ecclesiastical language would admit of it, — not
because they lived along with the demons in the air, but
because they conquered these demons or powers of the air,
and among them Juno herself, be she what she may, not

4 1 2 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

unsuitably represented, as she commonly is by the poets, as
hostile to virtue, and jealous of men of mark aspiring to the
heavens. Virgil, however, unhappily gives way, and yields to
her ; for, though he represents her as saying, " I am conquered
by ^neas,"^ Ilelenus gives /Eneas himself this religious
advice :

" Pay vows to Juno : overbear
Her queenly soul with gift and prayer."'

In conformity with this opinion. Porphyry — expressing, how-
ever, not so much his own views as other people's — says that
a good god or genius cannot come to a man unless the evil
genius has been first of all propitiated, implying that the evil
deities had greater power than the good ; for, until they have
been appeased and give place, the good can give no assist-
ance ; and if the evil deities oppose, the good can give no
help ; whereas the evil can do injury without the good being
able to prevent them. This is not the way of the true and
truly holy religion ; not thus do our martyrs conquer Juno,
that is to say, the pow^ers of the air, wdio envy the virtues of
the pious. Our heroes, if we could so call them, overcome
Here, not by suppliant gifts, but by divine virtues. As
Scipio, who conquered Africa by his valour, is more suit-
ably styled Africanus than if he had appeased his enemies
by gifts, and so won their mercy.

22. Whence the saints derive power against demons and true jyurijication

of heart.

Tt is by true piety that men of God cast out tlie hostile
power of the air which opi)oses godliness ; it is by exorcising
it, not by propitiating it; and they overcome all the tempta-
tions of the adversary by praying, not to him, but to their
own God against him. For the devil cannot conquer or
subdue any but those who are in league with sin ; and
therefore he is concpiered in the name of II im who assumed
humanity, and that without sin, tliat Himself being botli
Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of
sins, that is to say, might bring it about through tbe ^lediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by wliom we are
reconciled to God, the cleansing from sin being accomplished.

» ^ndil, vii. 310. « ^neid, iii. 438, 439.

BOOK X.] ALEXANDRIAN TRINITY. 413

For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we
are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the
divine compassion ; through His indulgence, not through our
own power. For, whatever virtue we call our own is itself
bestowed upon us by His goodness. And we might attribute
too much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in
the receipt of pardon until we laid it down. This is tlie
reason why there has been vouchsafed to us, through the
Mediator, this grace, that we who are polluted by sinful flesh
should be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh. By this
grace of God, wherein He has shown His great compassion
toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life, and,
after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by the
vision of immutable truth.

23. Of the principles which, according to the Platoiiisfs, regulate the
purification of the soul.

Even Porphyry asserts that it was revealed by divine
oracles that we are not purified by any sacrifices^ to sun
or moon, meaning it to be inferred that we are not purified
by sacrificing to any gods. For what mysteries can purify,
if those of the sun and moon, which are esteemed the chief
of the celestial gods, do not purify ? He says, too, in the
same place, that " principles " can purify, lest it should be
supposed, from his saying that sacrificing to the sun and
moon cannot purify, that sacrificing to some other of the host
of gods might do so. And what he as a Platonist means by
" principles," we know.^ For he speaks of God the Father and
God the Son, whom he calls (writing in Greek) the intellect
or mind of the Father ;^ but of the Holy Spirit he says either
nothing, or nothing plainly, for I do not understand what other
he speaks of as holding the middle place between these two.

1 Teletis.

2 The Platonists of the Alexandrian and Athenian schools, from Plotinus to
Proclus, are at one in recognising in God three principles or hypostases : 1st,
the One or the Good, which is the Father ; 2d, the Intelligence or Word, which
is the Son ; 3d, the Soul, which is the universal principle of life. But as to
the nature and order of these hypostases, the Alexandrians are no longer at one
with the school of Athens. On the very subtle differences between the Trinity
of Plotinus and that of Porphyry, consult M. Jules Simon, ii. 110, and M.
Vacherot, ii. 37. — Saisset.

3 See below, c. 28.

414 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

For if, like Plotinus in his discussion regarding the three
principal substances,^ he wished us to understand by this
third tlie soul of nature, he would certainly not have given
it the middle place between these two, that is, between the
Father and the Son. For Plotinus places the soul of nature
after the intellect of the Father, wliile Porphyry, making it
the mean, does not place it after, but between the others.
No doubt he spoke according to his light, or as he thought
expedient ; but we assert that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit
not of the Father only, nor of the Son only, but of botL
For pliilosophers speak as they have a mind to, and in the
most ditlicult matters do not scruple to offend religious ears ;
but we are bound to speak according to a certain rule, lest
freedom of speech beget impiety of opinion about the matters
themselves of which we speak.

24. 0/ the one only true principle which alone purijies and renews
human nature.

Accordingly, when we speak of God, we do not affirm two
or three principles, no more than we are at liberty to affirm
two or three gods ; although, speaking of each, of the Father,
or of the Son, or of the Holy Ghost, we confess that each is
God : and yet we do not say, as the Sabellian heretics say,
that the Father is the same as the Son, and the Holy Spirit
the same as the Father and the Son; but we say that tlie
Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son the Son of the
Father, and that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son
is neitlier the Father nor the Son. It was therefore truly
said that man is cleansed only by a Principle, although the
Platonists erred in speaking in the plural of principles. But
Porphyry, being under the dominion of these envious powers,
wliose influence he was at once ashamed of and afraid to
throw off, refused to recognise that Christ is the Principle by
whose incarnation we are j)urified. Indeed he despised Him,
because of the flesh itself which He assumed, that He miuht
offer a sacrifice for our purification, — a great mystery, un-
intelligible to P(»r})liyry's pride, which that true and benignant
liedeemer brought low by His humility, manifesting Himself
to mortals by the mortality which He assumed, and which

* Ennead. v. 1.

BOOK X.] CIIPJST THE PUEIFIEPu 415

the malignant and deceitful mediators are proud of wanting,
promising, as the boon of immortals, a deceptive assistance to
wretched men. Thus the good and true Mediator showed
that it is sin which is evil, and not the substance or nature
of flesh ; for this, together with the human soul, could without
sin be both assumed and retained, and laid down in death,
and changed to something better by resurrection. He showed
also that death itself, although the punishment of sin, was
submitted to by Him for our sakes without sin, and must
not be evaded by sin on our part, but rather, if opportunity
serves, be borne for righteousness' sake. For he was able
to expiate sins by dying, because He both died, and not for
sin of His own. But He has not been recognised by Por-
phyry as the Principle, otherwise he would have recognised
Him as the Purifier. The Principle is neither the flesh nor
the human soul in Christ, but the Word by which all things
were made. The flesh, therefore, does not by its own vil-tue
purify, but by virtue of the Word by which it was assumed,
when " the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." ^ For,
speaking mystically of eating His flesh, when those who did
not understand Him were offended and w^ent away, saying,
" This is an hard saying, who can hear it ? " He answered to
the rest who remained, " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ;
the flesh profiteth nothing."^ The Principle, therefore, having
assumed a human soul and flesh, cleanses the soul and flesh
of believers. Therefore, when the Jews asked Him who He
was. He answered that He was the Principle? And this we
carnal and feeble men, liable to sin, and involved in the dark-
ness of ignorance, could not possibly understand, unless we
were cleansed and healed by Him, both by means of what we
were, and of what we were not. For we were men, but we
were not righteous ; whereas in His incarnation there was a
human nature, but it was righteous, and not sinful. This
is the mediation whereby a hand is stretched to the lapsed
and fallen ; this is the seed " ordained by angels," by whose
ministry the law also was given .enjoining the worship ot one
God, and promising that this Mediator should come.

1 John i. 14. 2 John vi. 60-64.

3 John viii. 25 ; or "the be;:ciiininn:. " followinfc a dillerent readin'' from ours.

416 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

25. Tliat all the saints, both under the law aiul before it, were justified by faith
in tlie mystery of ChrlsCa incarnation.

It was by faitli in this mystery, and godliness of life, that
j)urilication was attainable even by the saints of old, whether
before the law was given to the Hebrews (for God and the
angels were even then present as instructors), or in the periods
under the law, although the promises of spiritual things, being
presented in figiire, seemed to be carnal, and hence the name
of Old Testament. For it was then the prophets lived, by
whom, as by angels, the same promise was announced ; and
among them was he whose grand and divine sentiment regard-
ing the end and supreme good of man I have just now quoted,
" It is good for me to cleave to God."' In this psalm the dis-
tinction between the Old and New Testaments is distinctly
announced. For the Psalmist says, that when he saw that
the carnal and earthly promises were abundantly enjoyed by
the ungodly, his feet were almost gone, his steps had weU-
nigh slipped ; and that it seemed to him as if he had served
Go3 in vain, when he saw that those who despised God in-
creased in that prosperity which he looked for at God's hand.
He says, too, that, in investigating tliis matter with the desire
of understanding why it was so, he had laboured in vain,
until he went into the sanctuary of God, and understood the
end of those whom he had erroneously considered happy.
Tlien he understood that they were cast down by that very
thing, as lie says, which they had made their boast, and that
they had been consumed and perished for their iniquities ;
and that tliat whole fabric of temporal prosperity liad become
as a dream when one awaketh, and suddenly finds himself
destitute of all the joys he had imaged in sleep. And, as
in this earth or earthy city they seemed to themselves to be
great, he says, " 0 Lord, in Thy city Thou wilt reduce their
imaj'e to nothing." lie also shows how beneficial it had
been for him to seek even earthly blessings only from the
one true God, in whose power are all things, for he says, "As
a beast was I before Thee, and I am always with Thee." " As
a beast," he says, meaning that he was stupid. For I ought
to have sought from Thee such things as the ungodly could

» Ps. Lvxiii. 28.

BOOK X.] DAVID CHOOSING GOD. 417

not enjoy as well as I, and not those things which I saw
them enjoying in abundance, and hence concluded I was serv-
ing Thee in vain, because they who declined to serve Thee
had what I had not. Nevertheless, " I am always with Thee,"
because even in my desire for such things I did not pray to
other gods. And consequently he goes on, " Thou hast holden
me by my right hand, and by Tliy counsel Thou hast guided
me, and with glory hast taken me up ;" as if all earthly ad-
vantages were left-hand blessings, though, when he saw them
enjoyed by the wicked, his feet had almost gone. " For what,"
he says, "have I in heaven, and what have I desired from
Thee upon earth ? " He blames himself, and is justly dis-
pleased mth himself; because, though he had in heaven so
vast a possession (as he afterwards understood), he yet sought
from his God on ,earth a transitory and fleeting happiness, — a
happiness of mire, we may say. " My heart and my flesh," he
says, " fail, 0 God of my heart." Happy failure, from things
below to things above ! And hence in another psalm he
says, " My soul longeth, yea, even faileth, for the coui'ts of the
Lord." ^ Yet, though he had said of both his heart and his
flesh that they were failing, he did not say, 0 God of my
heart and my flesh, but, 0 God of my heart ; for by the
heart the flesh is made clean. Therefore, says the Lord,
" Cleanse that which is within, and the outside shall be clean
also."^ He then says that God Himself, — not anything
received from Him, but Himself, — is his portion. " The God
of my heart, and my portion for ever." Among the various
objects of human choice, God alone satisfied him. " For, lo,"
he says, " they that are far Irom Thee shall perish : Thou de-
stroy est all them that go a- whoring from Thee," — that is, who
prostitute themselves to many gods. And then follows the
verse for which all the rest of the psalm seems to prepare :
'' It is good for me to cleave to God," — not to go far off ; not
to go a-whoring with a multitude of gods. And then shall
this union with God be perfected, when all that is to be re-
deemed in us has been redeemed. But for the present we
must, as he goes on to say, "place our hope in God." "For
that which is seen," says the apostle, " is not hope. For what

1 Ps. Lxxxiv. 2. - Matt, xxiii. 26.

VOL. L 2D

418 THE CITY OF GOD. [eOOK X.

a man sees, wliy does he yet hope for ? But if we hope for
that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."^
Ijcinc;, tlien, for the present established in this hope, let us do
what the Psalmist further indicates, and become in our mea-
sure angels or messengers of God, declaring His will, and
praising Ilis glory and His grace. For when he had said,
'* To place my hope in God," he goes on, " that I may declare
all Thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion." This
is the most glorious city of God ; this is the city which knows
and worships one God : she is celebrated by the holy angels,
who invite us to their society, and desire us to become feUow-
citizens with them in this city ; for they do not wish us to
worship tliem as our gods, but to join them in worshipping
their God and ours ; nor to sacrifice to them, but, together with
them, to become a sacrifice to God. Accordingly, whoever
will lay aside malignant obstinacy, and consider these things,
shall be assured that aU these blessed and immortal spirits,
who do not envy us (for if they envied they were not blessed),
but rather love us, and desire us to be as blessed as them-
selves, look on us with greater pleasure, and give us greater
assistance, when we join them in worshipping one God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, than if we were to offer to
themselves sacrifice and worship.

26. Of Porphyry's weakness in ycavering heticeen the conjession of the true God
and the worship of demons.

I know not how it is so, but it seems to me that Porphyry
blushed for his friends the theurgists ; for he knew all that
I have adduced, but did not frankly condemn polytheistic
worship. He said, in fact, that there are some angels who
visit earth, and reveal divine truth to theurgists, and others
who publish on earth the things that belong to the Father,
His height and depth. Can we believe, then, that the angels
whose office it is to declare the will of the Father, wish us to
be subject to any but Him whose will they declare ? And
lience, even this Platonist himsolf judiciously ol)servi\s that we
should rather imitate than invoke them. "VVe ought not, then,
to fear that we may offend these immortal and happy subjects

* Koui. viii. 21, 25. x

BOOK X.] porphyry's INCONSISTENCY. 419

of the one God by not sacrificing to them; for this they
know to be due only to the one true God, in allegiance to
whom they themselves find their blessedness, and therefore
they will not have it given to them, either in figure or in the
reality, which the mysteries of sacrifice symbolized. Such
arrogance belongs to proud and wretched demons, whose disposi-
tion is diametrically opposite to the piety of those who are
subject to God, and whose blessedness consists in attachment
to Him. And, that we also may attain to this bliss, they aid
us, as is fit, with sincere kindliness, and usurp over us no
dominion, but declare to us Him under whose rule we are then
fellow-subjects. AVhy, then, 0 philosopher, do you still fear
to speak freely against the powers which are inimical both to
true virtue and to the gifts of the true God ? Already you
have discriminated between the angels who proclaim God's
will, and those who visit theurgists, drawn down by I know
not what art. Why do you still ascribe to these latter the
honour of declaring divine truth ? If they do not declare the
will of the Father, what divine revelations can they make ?
Are not these the evil spirits who were bound over by the
incantations of an envious man,-^ that they should not grant
purity of soul to another, and could not, as you say, be set
free from these bonds by a good man anxious for purity, and
recover power over their own actions ? Do you still doubt
whether these are wicked demons ; or do you, perhaps, feign
ignorance, that you may not give offence to the theurgists, who
have allured you by their secret rites, and have taught you,
as a mighty boon, these insane and pernicious devilries ? Do
you dare to elevate above the air, and even to heaven, these
envious powers, or pests, let me rather call them, less worthy
of the name of sovereign than of slaves, as you yourself own ;
and are you not ashamed to place them even among your
sidereal gods, and so put a slight upon the stars themselves ?

27. Of the vminety of Porphyry, which is worse than even the mistake of
Apuleius.

How much more tolerable and accordant with human feel-
ing is the error of your Platonist co-sectary Apuleius ! for lie

^ See above, c. 9.

420 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

attributed the diseases and storms of human passions only
to tlie demons ^vho occupy a grade beneath the moon, and
makes even this avowal as by constraint regardinj;,^ gods wlmni
he honours ; but the superior and celestial gods, who inliabit
the ethereal regions, whether visiblo, as tlie sun, moon, and
other luminaries, whose brilliancy makes them conspicuous, or
invisible, but believed in by him, he does his utmost to re-
move beyond the slightest stain of these perturbations. It is
not, then, from Plato, but from your Chaldican teachers you
have learned to elevate human vices to the ethereal and em-
pyreal regions of the world and to the celestial firmament,
in order that your theurgists might be able to obtain from
your gods divine revelations; and yet you make yourself
superior to these divine revelations by your intellectual life,
which dispenses with these theurgic purifications as not
needed by a philosopher. But, by way of rewarding your
teachers, you recommend these arts to other men, who, not
being philosophers, may be persuaded to use what you acknow-
ledge to be useless to yourself, who are capable of higher
things ; so that tliose who cannot avail themselves of the
virtue of philosophy, which is too arduous for the multitude,
may, at your instigation, betake themselves to theurgists by
whom they may be purified, not, indeed, in the intellectual, but
in the spiritual part of the soul. !N'ow, as the persons who are
unfit for philosophy form incomparably the majority of man-
kind, more may be compelled to consult these secret and illicit
teachers of yours than frequent the Platonic schools. For
these most impure demons, pretending to be ethereal gods,
"whose herald and messenger you have become, have promised
that those who are purified by theurgy in the sjnritual part of
their soul shall not indeed return to the Father, but shall
dwell among the ethereal gods above the aerial regions. But
sucli fancies are not listened to by the multitudes of men
wliom Clirist came to set free from the tyranny of demons.
For in Him tlicv liavo tlio most gracious cleansing, in wdiich
mind, s])irit, and ])n(ly alike participate. For, in order that
He miglit heal the whole man from the plague of sin, He
took without sin the whole human nature. AVould that you
had known Him, and would that you had committed yourself

BOOK X.] PORPHYRY ON PUPJFICATIOX. 421

for healing to Him rather than to your own frail and infirm
human virtue, or to pernicious and curious arts ! He would
not have deceived you ; for Him your own oracles, on your
own showing, acknowledged holy and immortal. It is of Him,
too, that the most famous poet speaks, poetically indeed, since
he applies it to the person of another, yet truly, if you refer it
to Christ, saying, " Under thine auspices, if any traces of our
crimes remain, they shall be obliterated, and earth freed from
its perpetual fear." ^ By which he indicates that, by reason of
the infirmity which attaches to this life, the greatest progress in
virtue and righteousness leaves room for the existence, if not
of crimes, yet of the traces of crimes, which are obliterated only
by that Saviour of whom this verse speaks. For that he
did not say this at the prompting of his own fancy, Virgil tells
us in almost the last verse of that 4th Eclogue, when he
says, " The last age predicted by the Cumsean sibyl has now
arrived ; " whence it plainly appears that this had been dic-
tated by the Cumtean sibyl. But those theurgists, or rather
demons, who assume the appearance and form of gods, pollute
rather than purify the human spirit by false ajDpearances and
the delusive mockery of unsubstantial forms. How can those
whose own spirit is unclean cleanse the spirit of man ? Were
they not unclean, they would not be bound by the incantations
of an envious man, and would neither be afraid nor grudge
to bestow that hollow boon which they promise. But it is
sufficient for our purpose that you acknowledge that the in-
tellectual soul, that is, our mind, cannot be justified by
theurgy ; and that even the spiritual or inferior part of our
soul cannot by this act be made eternal and immortal, though
you maintain that it can be purified by it. Christ, however,
promises life eternal ; and therefore to Him the world flocks,
greatly to your indignation, greatly also to your astonishment
and confusion. What avails your forced avowal that theurgy
leads men astray, and deceives vast numbers by its ignorant
and foolish teaching, and that it is the most manifest mistake
to have recourse by prayer and sacrifice to angels and princi-
palities, when at the same time, to save yourself from the
charge of spending labour in vain on such arts, you direct

1 Virgil, Edog. iv. 13, 14.

422 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

men to the theurgists, that by their means men, who do not
live by the rule of the intellectual soul, may have their spi-
ritual soul purified ?

28. IIow it is that Porphyry has been so blind as not to recoynise the true
wisdom — Christ.

You drive men, therefore, into the most palpable error. And
yet you are not ashamed of doing so much harm, though
you call yourself a lover of virtue and wisdom. Had you
been true and faithful in this profession, you would have re-
cognised Christ, the virtue of God and the wisdom of God,
and would not, in the pride of vain science, have revolted from
Ilis wholesome humility. Nevertheless you acknowledge that
the spiritual part of the soul can be purified by the virtue of
chastity without the aid of those theurgic arts and mysteries
which you wasted your time in learning. You even say,
sometimes, that these mysteries do not raise the soul after
death, so that, after the termination of this life, they seem to be
of no service even to the part you call spiritual ; and yet you
recur on every opportunity to these arts, for no other purpose,
so far as I see, than to appear an accomplished theurgist, and
gratify those who are curious in illicit arts, or else to inspire
others with the same curiosity. But we give you all praise
for saying that this art is to be feared, both on account of the
legal enactments against it, and by reason of the danger in-
volved in the very practice of it. And would that in this,
at least, you were listened to by its wretched votaries, that
they might be withdrawn from entire absorption in it, or might
even be preserved from tampering with it at aU ! You say,
indeed, that ignorance, and the numberless vices resulting from
it, cannot be removed by any mysteries, but only by the irarpL-
/co? j/oO?, that is, the Father's mind or intellect conscious of
the Father's will. But that Christ is this mind you do not
believe ; for 11 im you despise on account of the body He took
of a woman and the shame of the cross ; for your lofty wisdom
spurns such low and contemptible things, and soars to more
exalted regions. But He fulfils what the lioly prophets truly
predicted regarding Him : " I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise, and bring to nought the prudence of the prudent" ^

* Isa. xxLx. 14.

BOOK X.] porphyry's DENIAL OF CHRIST. 423

For He does not destroy and bring to nought His own gift in
them, but wliat they arrogate to themselves, and do not hold
of Him. And hence the apostle, having quoted this testimony
from the prophet, adds, " Where is the wise ? where is the
scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not God
made foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after that, in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek
after wisdom ; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews
a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto
them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolish-
ness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is
stronger than men."-^ This is despised as a weak and foolish
thing by those who are wise and strong in themselves ; yet
tliis is the grace which heals the weak, who do not proudly
boast a blessedness of their own, but rather humbly acknow-
ledge their real misery.

29. Of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ichich the Platonists
in their impiety blush to acknowledge.

You proclaim the Father and His Son, whom you call the
Father's intellect or mind, and between these a third, by whom
we suppose you mean the Holy Spirit, and in your own fashion
you call these three Gods. In this, though your expressions
are inaccurate, you do in some sort, and as through a veil, see
what we should strive towards ; but the incarnation of the
unchangeable Son of God, whereby we are saved, and are
enabled to reach the things we believe, or in part understand,
this is what you refuse to recognise. You see in a fashioD,
although at a distance, although with filmy eye, the country
in which we should abide ; but the way to it you know not.
Yet you believe in grace, for you say it is granted to few to
reach God by virtue of intelligence. For you do not say, " Few
have thought fit or have wished," but, " It has been granted
to few," — distinctly acknowledging God's grace, not man's
sufficiency. You also use this word more expressly, when, in

1 1 Cor. i. 19-25.

424 THE CITY OF COD. [BOOK X.

accordance with the opinion of Plato, you make no doubt that
in this life a man cannot by any means attain to perfect
wisdom, but that whatever is lacking is in the future life
made up to tliose who live intellectually, by God's providence
and grace. Oh, had you but recognised the grace of God in
Jesus Christ our Lord, and that very incarnation of His,
wherein He assumed a human soul and body, you might
have seemed the brightest example of grace ! ^ But what am
I doing? I know it is useless to speak to a dead man, —
useless, at least, so far as regards you, but perhaps not in
vain for those who esteem you highly, and love you on
account of their love of wisdom or curiosity about those arts
which you ought not to have learned ; and these persons I
address in your name. The grace of God could not have
been more graciously commended to us than thus, that the
only Son of God, remaining unchangeable in Himself, should
assume humanity, and should give us the hope of His love,
by means of the mediation of a human nature, through which
we, from the condition of men, might come to Him who was so
far off, — the immortal from the mortal ; the unchangeable from
the changeable ; the just from the unjust ; the blessed from
the ^vretched. And, as He had given us a natural instinct to
desire blessedness and inmiortality. He Himself continuing
to be blessed, but assuming mortality, by enduring what we
fear, tanght us to despise it, that what we long for He might
bestow upon us.

But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness
that is requisite, and to this it is extremely dilTicult to bend
you. For what is there incredible, especially to men like you,
accustomed to speculation, which might have predisposed you
to believe in this, — what is there incredible, I say, in the
assertion that God assumed a human soul and body ? You
yourselves ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul,
which is, after all, the human soul, that you maintain that it
can become consubstantial with that intelligence of the Father
whom you believe in as the Son of God. \Miat incredible
thing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an
ineffable and uni(|iie manner for the salvation of many ?
* According to another rcadiiii^', " You might have seen it to be," etc.

BOOK X.] PLATO NlS^r AND THE INCAIlNATIO^^. 425

Moreover, our nature itself testifies that a man is incomplete
unless a body be united with the soul. This certainly would
be more incredible, were it not of all tilings the most common ;
for we should more easily believe in a union between spirit
and spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the
incorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were
human, the other divine, the one changeable and the other
unchangeable, than in a union between the corporeal and the
incorporeal. But perhaps it is the unprecedented birth of a
body from a virgin that staggers you ? But, so far from tliis
being a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to receive our
religion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously. Or,
do you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had
been given up to death, and had been changed into a higher
kind of body by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal
but incorruptible. He carried it up into heavenly places ?
Perhaps you refuse to believe this, because you remember that
Porphyry, in these very books from which I have cited so
much, and which treat of the return of the soul, so frequently
teaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in
order that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But
here, in place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have
corrected him, especially since you agree with him in believing
such incredible things about the soul of this visible world and
huge material frame. For, as scholars of Plato, you hold that
the world is an animal, and a very happy animal, wliich you
wish to be also everlasting. How, then, is it never to be loosed
from a body, and yet never lose its happiness, if, in order to
the happiness of the soul, the body must be left behind ? The
sun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge to be
bodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men,
but also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight,
you declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal,
together with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the
Christian faith is pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to
ignore, what you habitually discuss or teach ? Why is it that
you refuse to be Christians, on the ground that you hold
opinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish ? Is it not
because Christ came in lowliness, and ye are proud ? The

42 G THE CITY OF GOD. [UOOK X.

precise nature of the resurrection bodies of the saints may
sometimes occasion discussion among those who are best read
in the Christian Scriptures ; yet there is not among us the
smallest doubt that they shall be everlasting, and of a nature
exemplified in the instance of Clirist's risen body. But what-
ever be their nature, since we maintain that they shall be
absolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall offer no
hindrance to the soul's contemplation by which it is fixed
in God, and as you say that among the celestials tlie bodies
of the eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that,
in order to blessedness, every body must be escaped from ?
Why do you thus seek such a plausible reason for escaping
from the Christian faith, if not because, as I again say, Christ
is humble and ye proud ? Are ye ashamed to be corrected ?
This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degi'adation
for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to tlie disciple-
ship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think
and to say, " In the beginning was the AVord, and the \Vc»rd
was with God, and the AVord was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and
without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him
was life ; and the life was the light of men. And the light
shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."^
The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to
tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that
this opening passage of the holy gospel, entitled " According
to John," should be \^Tittcn in letters of gold, and hung up in
all churches in the most conspicuous place. But tlie proud
scorn to take God for their Master, because " the AVord was
made flesh and dwelt among us."^ So that, with those miserable
creatures, it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast
of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could
heal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more
disastrous fall.

30. Porphyry 8 emendations and modijicatiojis of Platonism.

If it is considered unseemly to emend anything which Plato
lias touched, why did Porphyry himself make emendations,

» Johni. 1-5. «Jol.ni. 14.

BOOK X.] porphyry's platonism. 427

and these not a few ? for it is very certain that Plato wrote
that the souls of men return after death to the bodies of
beasts.^ Plotinus also, Porphyry's teacher, held this opinion;'"^
yet Porphyry justly rejected it. He was of opinion that
human souls return indeed into human bodies, but not into
the bodies they had left, but other new bodies. He shrank
from the other opinion, lest a woman who had returned into
a mule might possibly carry her own son on her back. He
did not shrink, however, from a theory which admitted the
possibility of a mother coming back into a girl and marrying
her own son. How much more honourable a creed is that
which was taught by the holy and truthful angels, uttered by
the prophets who were moved by God's Spirit, preached by
Him who was foretold as the coming Saviour by His fore-
running heralds, and by the apostles whom He sent forth,
and who filled the whole world with the gospel, — how much
more honourable, I say, is the belief that souls return once
for all to their own bodies, than that they return again and
again to divers bodies ? Nevertheless Porphyry, as I have
said, did considerably improve upon this opinion, in so far, at
least, as he maintained that human souls could transmigrate
only into human bodies, and made no scruple about demolish-
ing the bestial prisons into which Plato had wished to cast
them. He says, too, that God put the soul into the world
that it might recognise the evils of matter, and return to the
Father, and be for ever emancipated from the polluting con-
tact of matter. And although here is some inappropriate
thinking (for the soul is rather given to the body that it may
do good ; for it would not learn evil unless it did it), yet he
corrects the opinion of other Platonists, and that on a point
of no small importance, inasmuch as he avows that the soul,
which is purged from all evil and received to the Father's
presence, shall never again suffer the ills of this life. By
this ojjinion he quite subverted the favourite Platonic dogma,
that as dead men are made out of living ones, so living men
are made out of dead ones ; and he exploded the idea which
Virgil seems to have adopted from Plato, that the purified
souls which have been sent into the Elysian fields (the poetic

1 Comp. Euseb. Prcep. Evan. xiii. 16. ' Ennead. iii. 4. 2.

428 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

name for the joys of the blessed) are summoned to the river
Lethe, that is, to the oblivion of the past,

** That earthward tliey may pass once more,
liemembering not tlie tilings before,
And with a blind propension yearn
To fleshly bodies to return."'

This found no favour with Porphyry, and very justly ; for it
is indeed foolish to believe that soids should desire to return
from that life, wliich cannot be very blessed unless by the
assurance of its permanence, and to come back into this life,
and to the pollution of corruptible bodies, as if the result of
perfect purification were only to make defilement desirable.
For if perfect purification effects the oblivion of all evils, and
the oblivion of evils creates a desire for a body in which the
soul may again be entangled with evils, then the supreme
felicity will be the cause of infelicity, and the perfection of
wisdom the cause of foolishness, and the purest cleansing the
cause of defilement. And, however long the blessedness of
the soul last, it cannot be founded on truth, if, in order to be
blessed, it must be deceived. For it cannot be blessed unless
it be free from fear. But, to be free from fear, it must be
under the false impression that it shall be always blessed, —
the false impression, for it is destined to be also at some time
miserable. How, then, shall the soul rejoice in truth, whose
joy is founded on falsehood ? Porphpy saw this, and there-
fore said that the purified soul returns to the Father, that it
may never more be entangled in the polluting contact with
evil. The opinion, therefore, of some l*latonists, tliat there is
a necessary revolution carrying souls away and bringing them
round again to tlie same things, is false. But, were it true,
what were the advantage of knowing it ? AVould tlie Pla-
tonists presume to allege their superiority to us, because we
were in tliis life ignorant of what they themselves were doomed
to be ignorant of wlien perfected in purity and wisdom in
another and better life, and which they must be ignorant of
ii^iey are to be blessed ? If it were most absurd and foolisli
to say so, then certainly we must prefer rorph}Ty's opinicm
to the idea of a circulation of souls tlirough constantly alter-

* jEneUl, vi. 750, 751.

i

BOOK X.] PLATONIC DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL. 429

nating happiness and misery. And if this is just, here is a
Platonist emending Plato, here is a man who saw what Plato
did not see, and who did not shrink from correcting so illus-
trious a master, but preferred truth to Plato.

31. Against the arguments on which the Platonlsts ground their assertion that
the human soul is co-eternal with God.

"Why, then, do we not rather believe the divinity in those
matters, w^hich human talent cannot fathom ? Wliy do we
not credit the assertion of divinity, that the soul is not co-
eternal with God, but is created, and once was not ? Por the
Platonists seemed to themselves to allege an adequate reason
for their rejection of this doctrine, when they affirmed that
nothing could be everlasting which had not always existed.
Plato, however, in writing concerning the world and the gods
in it, whom the Supreme made, most expressly states that
they had a beginning and yet would have no end, but, by the
sovereign will of the Creator, would endure eternally. But,
by way of interpreting this, the Platonists have discovered
that he meant a beginning, not of time, but of cause. " For
as if a foot," they say, "had been always from eternity in
dust, there would always have been a print underneath it;
and yet no one would doubt that this print w^as made by the
pressure of the foot, nor that, though the one was made by
the other, neither was prior to the other ; so," they say, " the
world and the gods created in it have always been, their
Creator always existing, and yet they were made." If, then,
the soul has always existed, are we to say that its wretched-
ness has always existed ? Por if there is something in it
which was not from eternity, but began in time, why is it
impossible that the soul itself, though not previously existing,
should begin to be in time ? Its blessedness, too, which, as
he owns, is to be more stable, and indeed endless, after the
soul's experience of evils, — this undoubtedly has a beginning
in time, and yet is to be always, though previously it had no
existence. This whole argumentation, therefore, to establish
that nothing can be endless except that which has had no
beginning, falls to the ground. For here we find the blessed-
ness of the soul, which has a beginning, and yet has no end.
And, therefore, let the incapacity of man give place to the

4^0 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

authority of God ; and let us take our belief regarding the
true religion from the ever-blessed spirits, who do not seek for
themselves tliat honour which they know to be due to their
God and ours, and who do not command us to sacrifice save
only to Him, whose sacrifice, as I have often said already,
and must often say again, we and they ought together to be,
offered through that Priest who offered Himself to death a
sacrifice for us, in that human nature wliich He assumed, and
according to which He desired to be our Priest.

32. Of the universal way of the souVs deliverance, which Porphyry did not find
because he did not rightly seek it, and which the grace of Christ Jias alone
thrown open.

This is the religion wliicli possesses the universal way for
delivering the soul ; for, except by this way, none can be
delivered. This is a kind of royal way, which alone leads to
a kingdom which does not totter like all temporal dignities,
but stands firm on eternal foundations. And when Porphwy
says, towards the end of the first book Dc Rcgrcssio Animcc,
that no system of doctrine which furnishes the universal way
for delivering the soul has as yet been received, either from
the truest philosophy, or from the ideas and practices of the
Indians, or from the reasoning^ of the ChaldcTans, or from any
source whatever, and that no historical reading had made
him acquainted with that way, he manifestly acknowledges
that there is such a way, but that as yet he was not acquainted
with it. Nothing of all that he had so laboriously learned
concerning the deliverance of tlie soul, nothing of all that he
seemed to otliers, if not to himself, to know and believe, satis-
fied him. For lie perceived that there was still w\anting a
commanding authority wliich it might be right to follow in a
matter of such importance. And when he says that he had
not learned from any truest philosophy a system which pos-
sessed the universal way of the soul's deliverance, he shows
plainly enough, as it seems to me, either that the philosophy
of which he was a disciple was not the truest, or that it did
not comprehend such a way. And how can that be the truest
philosophy which does not possess this way ? For what else
is the universal way of the soul's deliverance than that by

^ Inductio.

BOOK X.] PORPHYRY ON REDEMPTION. 431

which all souls universally are delivered, and without which,
therefore, no soul is delivered ? And when he says, in addi-
tion, " or from the ideas and practices ot the Indians, or from
the reasoning of the ChaldiBans, or from any source whatever,"
he declares in the most unequivocal language that this uni-
versal way of the soul's deliverance was not embraced in what
he had learned either from the Indians or the Chaldseans; and
yet he could not forhear stating that it was from the Chalda?.ans
he had derived these divine oracles of which he makes such
frequent mention. Wliat, therefore, does he mean by this
universal way of the soul's deliverance, which had not yet
been made known by any truest philosophy, or by the doc-
trinal systems of those nations which were considered to have
great insight in things divine, because they indulged more
freely in a curious and fanciful science and worship of angels ?
"VYhat is this universal way of which he acknowledges his
ignorance, if not a way which does not belong to one nation
as its special property, but is common to all, and divinely
bestowed ? Porph}Ty, a man of no mediocre abilities, does
not question that such a way exists ; for he believes that
Divine Providence could not have left men destitute of this
universal way of delivering the soul. For he does not say
that this way does not exist, but that this great boon and
assistance has not yet been discovered, and has not come to
his knowledge. And no wonder ; for Porphyry lived in an age
when this universal way of the soul's deliverance, — in other
words, the Cliristian religion, — was exposed to the persecutions
of idolaters and demon-worshippers, and earthly rulers,^ that
the number of martyrs or witnesses for the truth might be
completed and consecrated, and that by them proof might be
given that we must endure all bodily sufferings in the cause
of the holy faith, and for the commendation of the truth.
Porphpy, being a witness of these persecutions, concluded
that this way was destined to a speedy extinction, and that it,
therefore, was not the universal way of the soul's deliverance,
and did not see that the very thing that thus moved him, and
deterred him from becoming a Christian, contributed to the
confirmation and more effectual commendation of our religion.

' Namely, under Diocletian and Maximian.

432 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

This, then, is tlie universal way of the soul's deliverance,
the way that is granted by the divine compassion to the
nations universally. And no nation to which the knowledge
of it has already come, or may hereafter come, ought to
demand, Why so soon ? or, "VVliy so late ? — for the design of
Ilim who sends it is impenetrable by human capacity. This
was felt by Porphyry when he confined himself to saying that
this gift of God was not yet received, and had not yet come
to his knowledge. Tor, though tliis was so, he did not on
that account pronounce that the way itself had no exist-
ence. This, I say, is the universal way for the deliverance
of believers, concerning wliich the faithful Abraham received
the divine assurance, " In thy seed shall all nations be
blessed."^ He, indeed, was by birtli a Chaldcean; but, that
he might receive these great promises, and that there might
be propagated from him a seed "disposed by angels in the
hand of a Mediator,"^ in whom this universal way, thrown
open to all nations for the deliverance of the soul, might be
found, he was ordered to leave his country, and kindred, and
father's house. Then was he himself, fiist of all, delivered
from the Chalda^an superstitions, and by his obedience wor-
shipped the one true God, whose promises he faithfully
trusted. This is the universal way, of which it is said in
holy prophecy, " God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and
cause His face to shine upon us ; that Thy way may be
known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations."^
And hence, when our Saviour, so long after, had taken flesh
of the seed of Abraliam, He says of Himself, " I am the way,
the truth, and the life."* This is the universal way, of wliich
80 long before it had been predicted, " And it shall come to
pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be
exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it
And many people shall go and say. Come ye, and let us go
up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of
Jacob ; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk
in His paths : fur out of Siun shall go forth the law, and the

^ Gen. xxii. 18. ^ Cal iii. 19.

• Vs. Lxvii. 1,2. * JoLii .\iv. G.

BOOK X.] OF THE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 433

word of the Lord from Jerusalem."-^ This way, therefore, is not
the property of one, but of all nations. The law and the word
of the Lord did not remain in Zion and Jerusalem, but issued
thence to be universally diffused. And therefore the Mediator
Himself, after His resurrection, says to His alarmed disciples,
" These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms,
concerning me. Then opened He theh^ understandings that
they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them.
Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and
to rise from the dead the third day : and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name among all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem."^ This is the universal way
of the soul's deliverance, which the holy angels and the holy
prophets formerly disclosed where they could among the few
men who found the grace of God, and especially in the Hebrew
nation, whose commonwealth was, as it were, consecrated to
prefigure and fore-announce the city of God which was to be
gathered from all nations, by their tabernacle, and temple, and
priesthood, and sacrifices. In some explicit statements, and
in many obscure foreshadowings, this way was declared ; but
latterly came the Mediator Himself in the fiesli, and His
blessed apostles, revealing how the grace of the New Testa-
ment more openly explained what had been obscurely hinted
to preceding generations, in conformity with the relation of
the ages of the human race, and as it pleased God in His
wisdom to appoint, who also bore them witness with signs
and miracles, some of which I have cited above. For not
only were there visions of angels, and words heard from those
heavenly ministrants, but also men of God, armed with the
word of simple piety, cast out unclean spirits from the bodies
and senses of men, and healed deformities and sicknesses ;
the wild beasts of earth and sea, the birds of air, inanimate
things, the elements, the stars, obeyed their divine commands ;
the powers of hell gave way before them, the dead were re-
stored to life. I say nothing ot the miracles peculiar and
proper to the Saviour's own person, especially the nativity

» Isa. ii. 2, 3. 2 LuJ^^ xxiv. 44-47.

VOL. I. ? E

434 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK X.

and tlie resurrection ; in the one of which He wrought only
the mystery of a virgin maternity, while in the other He
furnislied an instance of the resurrection which all sliall at
last experience. This way purifies the wliole man, and pre-
pares tlie mortal in all liis parts for immortality. For, to
prevent us from seeking for one i)urgation for the part which
Porpliyry calls intellectual, and another for the part he calls
spiritual, and another for the body itself, our most mighty
and truthful Purifier and Saviour assumed the whole human
nature. Except by this way, which has been present among
men both during the period of the promises and of the pro-
clamation of . their fulfilment, no man has been delivered, no
man is delivered, no man shall be delivered.

As to Porphyry's statement that the universal way of the
soul's deliverance liad not yet come to his knowledge by any
acquaintance he had with history, I would ask, what more
remarkable liistory can be found than that which has taken
possession of the whole world by its authoritative voice ? or
what more trustworthy than that which naiTates past events,
and predicts the future with equal clearness, and in the un-
fulfilled predictions of which we are constrained to believe by
those that are already fulfilled ? For neither Porphyry nor
any Platonists can despise divination and prediction, even of
things that pertain to this life and earthly matters, though
they justly despise ordinary soothsaying and the divination
that is connected with magical arts. They deny that these
are the predictions of great men, or are to be considered
important, and they are right; for they are founded, either
on the foresight of subsidiary causes, as to a professional eye
mucli of the course of a disease is foreseen by certain pre-
monitory symptoms, or the unclean demons predict what
they have resolved to do, that they may thus work upon the
thouglits and desires of the wicked with an appearance of
authority, and incline human frailty to imitate their impure
actions. It is not such things that the saints who walk in
the universal way care to predict as important, althougli, for
the purpose of commending the faith, they knew and often
])redicted even such things as could not be detected by human
observation, nor be readily verified by experience. But there

BOOK X.] PHEDICTIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 435

were other truly important and divine events which they pre-
dicted, in so far as it was given them to know the will of
God. / For the incarnation of Christ, and all those important
marvels that were accomplished in Him, and done in His
name ; the repentance of men and the conversion of their wills
to God ; the remission of sins, the grace of righteousness, the
faith of the pious, and the multitudes in all parts of the world
who believe in the true divinity; the overthrow of idolatry
and demon worship, and the testing of the faithful by trials ;
the purification of those who persevered, and their deliverance
from all evil ; the day of judgment, the resurrection of the
dead, the eternal damnation of the community of the ungodly,
and the eternal kingdom of the most glorious city of God,
ever-blessed in the enjoyment of the vision of God, — these
things were predicted and promised in the Scriptures of this
way ; and of these we see so many fulfilled, that we justly
and piously trust that the rest will also come to pass. As
for those who do not believe, and consequently do not under-
stand, that this is the way which leads straight to the vision
of God and to eternal fellowship with Him, according to the
true predictions and statements of the Holy Scriptures/ they
may storm at our position, but they cannot storm it.

And therefore, in these ten books, though not meeting, I
dare say, the expectation of some, yet I have, as the true God
and Lord has vouchsafed to aid me, satisfied the desire of
certain persons, by refuting the objections of the ungodly,
who prefer their own gods to the Founder of the holy city,
about which we undertook to speak. Of these ten books, the
first five were directed against those who think we should
worship the gods for the sake of the blessings of this life, and
the second five against those who think we should worship
them for the sake of the life which is to be after death. And
now, in fulfilment of the promise I made in the first book, I
shall go on to say, as God shall aid me, what I think needs
to be said regarding the origin, history, and deserved ends of
the two cities, which, as already remarked, are in tliis world
commingled and implicated with one another.

43 G THE CITY OF GOD. [DOOK XI.

BOOK ELEVENTH.

ARGUMENT.

HERE BEGINS THE SECOND PART^ OF THIS WORK, WHICH TREATS OF THE ORIGIN',
HISTORY, AND DESTINIES OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE
HEAVENLY. IN THE FIRST PLACE, AUGUSTINE SHOWS IN THIS BOOK HOW
THE TWO CITIES WERE FORMED ORIGINALLY, BY THE SEPARATION OF THE
GOOD AND BAD ANGELS ; AND TAKES OCCASION TO TREAT OF THE CREATION
OF THE WORLD, AS IT IS DESCRIBED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE IN THE BEGIN-
NING OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

1. Of this part of the loork, wherein toe begin to explain the origin and end
of tlie two cities.

THE city of God we speak of is the same to which testi-
mony is borne by that Scripture, which excels all tlie
writings of all nations by its divine authority, and has brouglit
under its influence all kinds of minds, and this not by a
casual intellectual movement, but obviously by an express
providential arrangement. For there it is written, " Glorious
things are spoken of thee, 0 city of God."^ And in another
psalm we read, " Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in
the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness, increas-
ing the joy of the whole earth." ^ And, a little after, in the
same psalm, " As we have heard, so have we seen in the city
of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God has estab-
lished it for ever." And in another, " There is a river the
' streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy
place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the
midst of li(T, she shall not be moved."* From these and
similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we
have learned tliat tliere is a city of God, and its Founder has
inspired us witli a love which makes us covet its citizenship.
To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly
city prefer tlieir own gods, not knowing tliat He is the God

^ Written in the year 41G or 417. ' Ps. Ixxxvii. 3.

• I's. xlviii. 1. * Ps. xlvi. 4.

BOOK XI.] HOW MAN KNOWS GOD. 437

of gods, not of false, i.e. of impious and proud gods, who,
being deprived of His uncliangeable and freely communicated
light, and so reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power,
eagerly grasp at their own private privileges, and seek divine
honours from their deluded subjects ; but of the pious and
holy gods, who are better pleased to submit themselves to one,
than to subject many to themselves, and who would rather
worship God than be worshipped as God. But to the enemies
of this city we have replied in the ten preceding books, ac-
cording to our ability and the help afforded by our Lord
and King. Now, recognising what is expected of me, and
not unmindful of my promise, and relying, too, on the same
succour, I will endeavour to treat of the origin, and progress,
and deserved destinies of the two cities (the -earthly and the
heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are in this present world
comminsjled, and as it were entanc^led tosjether. And, first, I
will explain how the foundations of these two cities were
originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.

2. Of the knowledge of God, to which no man can attain save through the
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

It is a great and very rare thing for a man, after he has
contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal,
and has discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by
the continued soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchange-
able substance of God, and, in that height of contemplation, to
learn from God Himself that none but He has made all that
is not of the divine essence. For God speaks with a man
not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so
that atmospheric vibrations connect Hini that makes with
him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual
being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams
or similar states ; for even in this case He speaks as if to the
ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance of
a body He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of
space, — for visions are exact representations of bodily objects.
Not by these, then, does God speak, but by the truth itself,
if any one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with
the body. For He speaks to that part of man which is better
than all else that is in him. and than which God HimseK

438 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

alone is better. For since man is most properly understood
(or, if that cannot be, then, at least, Iclieved) to be made in
God's image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he
rises above those lower parts he has in common with the
beasts, which brings him nearer to the Supreme. But since
tlie mind itself, though naturally capable of reason and in-
telligence, is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not
merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerat-
ing His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed,
and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in
the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified.
And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently
towards the truth, the truth itself, God, God's Son, assuming
humanity without destroying His divinity,^ established and
founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to
man's God through a God-man. For this is the ^lediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as
man that He is the Mediator and the "Way. Since, if the
way lieth between him who goes, and the place whither he
goes, there is hope of his reaching it ; but if there be no way,
or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither
he should go ? Now the only way that is infallibly secured
against all mistakes, is when the very same person is at once
God and man, God our end, man our way.^

3. 0/ the authority of the canonical Scriptures composed hy the Divine Spirit.

This Mediator, having spoken wliat He judged sufliciont,
first by the prophets, tlien by His own lips, and afterwards by
the apostles, has besides produced the Scriptiu-e which is called
canonical, which has paramount autliority, and to which we
yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be
ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain
the knowledge of present objects by the testimony of our own
senses,^ whether internal or external, then, regarding objects
remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their

* Ilomino ossumto, non Deo consumto.

* Quo itur Dcus, (jua itur lioino.

' A clause is here iiibcrUd to give tLe etymology of prccseiUia from jva
ttn^ibus.

BOOK XI.] CREATION NO PROOF OF CHANGE IN GOD. 439

testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we
credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are
sensibly present. Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects
which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and like-
wise with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which
are perceived^ by the mind and spirit, i.e. which are remote
from our own interior sense, it behoves us to trust those who
have seen them set in that incorporeal light, or abidingly
contemplate them.

4. That the ivorld is neither without heglnnlng, nor yet created hy a new decree
of God, hy ivhich He afterwards loilled what He lead not hefore willed.

Of all visible things, the world is the greatest ; of all in-
visible, the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see ;
that God is, we believe. That God made the world, we can
believe from no one more safely than from God Himself. But
where have we heard Hun ? JSTowhere more distinctly than in
the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said, " In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth." ^ Was the prophet
present when God made the heavens and the earth ? No ;
but the wisdom of God, by whom all things wxre made, was
there,^ and wisdom insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes
them the friends of God and His prophets, and noiselessly
informs them of His works. They are taught also by the
angels of God, who always behold the face of the Father,* and
announce His will to whom it befits. Of these prophets was
he who said and wrote, " In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth." And so fit a witness was he of God,
that the same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him,
enabled him also so long before to predict that our faith also
would be forthcoming.

But why did God choose then to create the heavens and
earth which up to that time He had not made ? ^ If they
who put this question wish to make out that the world is
eternal and without beginning, and that consequently it has

^ Another derivation, sententia from sensus, the inward perception of tlie
mind.

2 Gen. i. 1. 3 Pj-q^ ^jij 27. •* Matt, xviii. 10.

5 A common question among the Epicureans ; urged by Velleius in Cic. De
Nat. Deor. i. 9 ; adopted by the Manichoeans and spoken to by Augustine m
the ConJ. xi. 10, 12, also in De Gen. contra Man. i. 3.

440 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XT.

not been made by God, they are strangely deceived, and rave
in the incurable madness of impiety. For, though the voices of
the prophets were silent, the world itself, by its well-ordered
changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all
visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has
been created, and also that it could not have been, created save
by God, whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and in-
visible. As for those * who own, indeed, that it was made by
God, and yet ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational
beginning, so that in some scarcely intelligible way the world
should always have existed a created world, they make an
assertion which seems to them to defend God from the charge
of arbitrary hastiness, or of suddenly conceiving the idea of
creating the world as a quite new idea, or of casually chang-
ing His will, though He be unchangeable. But I do not see
how this supposition of theirs can stand in other respects, and
chiefly in respect of the soul ; for if they contend that it is
co-eternal with God, they will be quite at a loss to explain
whence there has accrued to it new misery, which through a
previous eternity had not existed. For if they said that its
happiness and misery ceaselessly alternate, they must say,
further, that this alternation will continue for ever ; whence
will result this absurdity, that, though the soul is called
blessed, it is not so in this, that it foresees its own misery and
disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and supposes that
it will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but always blessed,
then it is blessed because it is deceived ; and a more foolish
statement one cannot make. But if their idea is that the
soul's misery has alternated with its bliss during the ages of
the past eternity, but that now, when once the soul has been
set free, it will return henceforth no more to misery, they are
nevei-theless of opinion that it has never been truly blessed
before, but begins at last to enjoy a new and uncertain hap-
piness ; that is to say, they must acknowledge that some new
thing, and tliat an important and signal thing, happens to the
soul wliich never in a wliole past eternity happened it before.
And if tliey deny tliat God's eternal purpose included tliis
new experience of the soul, they deny that He is the Author
1 The Neo-lMatonisU

BOOK XI.] WHY WAS CREATION DELAYED ? 441

of its blessedness, which is unspeakable impiety. If, on the
other hand, they say that the future blessedness of the soul is
the result of a new decree of God, how will they show that
God is not chargeable with that mutability which displeases
them ? Further, if they acknowledge that it was created in
time, but will never perish in time, — that it has, like number,*
a beginning but no end, — and that, therefore, having once made
trial of misery, and been delivered from it, it will never again
return thereto, they will certainly admit that this takes place
without any violation of the immutable counsel of God. Let
them, then, in like manner believe regarding the world that it
too could be made in time, and yet that God, in making it,
did not alter His eternal desim.

o

5. That we onrjlit not to seek to comprehend the wjin'ite ages of time before
the world, nor the infinite realms of space.

Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who
agree that God is the Creator of the world, but have difficulties
about the time of its creation, and what reply, also, they can
make to difficulties we might raise about the place of its
creation. For, as they demand why the world was created
then and no sooner, we may ask why it was created just here
where it is, and not elsewhere. For if they imagine infinite
spaces of time before the world, during which God could not
have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the
world infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that
the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it
not follow that they must adopt Epicurus' dream of innu-
merable worlds ? with this difference only, that he asserts that
they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements
of atoms, while they will hold that they are made by God's
hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless immensity
of space, stretching interminably in every direction round the
world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose
Him to make cannot be destroyed. For here the question
is with those who, with ourselves, believe that God is spiritual,
and the Creator ol all existences but Himself. As for others,
it is a condescension to dispute with them on a religious
question, for they have acquired a reputation only among men

^ Number begins at one, but runs on infinitely.

442 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XL

who pay divine honours to a number of gods, and liave
become conspicuous among the other philosophers for no other
reason than that, though they are still far from the truth,
they are near it in comparison with the rest. While these,
then, neither confine in any place, nor limit, nor distribute the
divine substance, but, as is worthy of God, own it to be wholly
tliough spiritually present everywhere, will they perchance say
that this substance is absent from such immense spaces outside
the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little
one compared with the infinity beyond,) the one, namely, in
which is the world ? I think they will not proceed to this
absurdity. Since they maintain that there is but one world,
of vast material bulk, indeed, yet finite, and in its own deter-
minate position, and that this was made by the working of
God, let them give the same account of God's resting in the
infinite times before the world as they give of His resting in
the infinite spaces outside of it. And as it does not follow
that God set the world in the very spot it occupies and no
other by accident rather than by divine reason, although no
human reason can comprehend why it was so set, and though
there was no merit in the spot chosen to give it the precedence
of infinite others, so neither does it follow that we should
suppose that God was guided by chance when He created the
world in that and no earlier time, although previous times
had been running by during an infinite past, and though there
was no difference by which one time could be chosen in pre-
ference to another. But if they say that the thoughts of
men are idle when they conceive infinite places, since there
is no place beside the world, we reply that, by the same
showing, it is vain to conceive of the past times of God's rest,
since there is no time before the world.

C. That th'j icorld and time had both one hcginning, and the one did not
anticipate the other.

For if eternity and time are riglitly distinguished by this,
that time does not exist without some movement and transition,
while in eternity there is no cliange, who does not see that
there could have been no time had not some creature been
made, wliich by some motion could give birlli to change, — tlie
various parts of wliich motion and change, as they cannot be

BOOK XI.] CREATION AND TIME CONTEMPORANEOUS. 443

simultaneous, succeed one another, — and thus, in these shorter
or longer intervals of duration, time would begin ? Since
then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the Creator
and Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to
have created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless
it be said that prior to the world there was some creature by
whose movement time could pass. And if the sacred and
infallible Scriptures say that in the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth, in order that it may be understood
that He had made nothing previously, — for if He had made
anything before the rest, this thing would rather be said to
have been made " in the beginning," — then assuredly the
world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time.
For that which is made in time is made both after and before
some time, — after that which is past, before that which is
future. But none could then be past, for there was no crea-
ture by who^e movements its duration could be measured.
But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the
world's creation change and motion were created, as seems
evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in
these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the
sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and
on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely
signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely
difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how
much more to say !

7. Of the nature of the first days, which are said to have had morning
and evening, before there was a sun.

We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but
by the setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun ;
but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since
it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first
ot all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God,
we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light
Day, and the darkness Night ; but what kind of light that was,
and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning,
is beyond the reach of our senses ; neither can we understand
how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For either
it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper

444 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

parts of the world, far removed from our sight, or from the
spot where the sun was afterwards kindled ; or under the
name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy
angels and blessed spirits, the city of wliich the apostle says,
"Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven;"^
and in another place, " For ye are all the children of the light,
and the children of the day ; we are not of the night, nor of
darkness."^ Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak
of a morning and evening of this day also. For the knowledge
of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of the
Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into
morning when the creature is drawn to the praise and love
of the Creator ; and night never falls when the Creator is not
forsaken through love of the creature. In fine. Scripture,
when it would recount those days in order, never mentions
the word night. It never says, "Night was," but "The evening
and the morning were the first day." So of the second and
the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created things con-
templated by themselves is, so to speak, more colourless than
when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by
which they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable
figure than night ; and yet, as I said, morning returns when
the creature returns to the praise and love of the Creator.
When it does so in the knowledcre of itself, that is the first
day ; when in the knowledge of the firmament, which is the
name given to the sky between the waters above and those
beneath, that is the second day ; when in the knowledge of
the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the
earth, that is the third day ; when in the knowledge of the
gi-eater and less luminaries, and all the stars, that is the fourth
day ; when in the knowledge of all animals that swim in the
waters and that fly in the air, that is the fifth day ; when in
the knowledge of all animals tJiat live on the earth, and of
man liimself, that is the sixth day.^

8. What we are to understand oj God's resting on the seventh day, after
the six days' work.

When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from
all His works, and hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this

^ (Jul. iv. 2G. " 1 Thess. v. 5. ^ Coiiip. de Gen. ad lit. i. and iv.

BOOK XI.] OF THE CREATION OF ANGELS. 445

in a cliilclish fashion, as if work were a toil to God, who " spake
and it was done," — spake by the spiritual and eternal, not
audible and transitory word. But God's rest signifies the
rest of those who rest in God, as the joy of a house means
the joy of those in the house who rejoice, though not the
house, but something else, causes the joy. How much more
intelligible is such phraseology, then, if the house itself, by its
own beauty, makes the inhabitants joyful ! For in this case
we not only call it joyful by that figure of speech in which
the thing containing is used for the thing contained (as when
we say, " The theatres applaud," " The meadows low," meaning
that the men in the one applaud, and the oxen in the other
low), but also by that figure in which the cause is spoken of
as if it were the effect, as when a letter is said to be joyful,
because it makes its readers so. Most appropriately, therefore,
the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning thereby
that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest.
And this the prophetic narrative promises also to the men to
whom it speaks, and for whom it was written, that they them-
selves, after those good works which God does in and by
them, if they have managed by faith to get near to God in
this life, shall enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was pre-
figured to the ancient people of God by the rest enjoined in
their sabbath law, of which, in its own place, I shall speak
more at large.

9. What the Scriptures teach us to helie.ve concerning the creation oj
the angels.

At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin
of the holy city, and first of the holy angels, who constitute
a large part of this city, and indeed the more blessed part,
since they have never been expatriated, I will give myself to
the task of explaining, by God's help, and as far as seems
suitable, the Scriptures which relate to this point. Where
Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is not plainly said
whether or when the angels were created ; but if mention of
them is made, it is implicitly under the name of " heaven,"
when it is said, " In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth," or perhaps rather under the name of " light,"
of which presently. But that they were wholly omitted, I

446 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

am unable to believe, because it is written that God on the
seventh day rested from all His works which He made ; and
this very book itself begins, " In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth," so that before heaven and earth
God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He began
with the heavens and the earth, — and the earth itself, as Scrip-
ture adds, was at first invisible and formless, lidit not beinjr
as yet made, and darkness covering the face of the deep (that
is to say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for
where light is not, darkness must needs be), — and then when
all things, which are recorded to have been completed in six
days, were created and arranged, how should the angels be
omitted, as if they were not among the works of God, from
which on the seventh day He rested ? Yet, though the fact
that the angels are the work of God is not omitted here, it is
indeed not explicitly mentioned ; but elsewhere Holy Scrip-
ture asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn of
the Three Children in the Furnace it was said, " 0 all ye works
of the Lord, bless ye the Lord ;" ^ and among these works
mentioned afterwards in detail, the angels are named. And
in the psalm it is said, " Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,
praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels ;
praise ye Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon ;
praise Him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of
heavens ; and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them
praise the name of the Lord ; for He commanded, and they
were created." ^ Here the angels are most expressly and by
divine authority said to have been made by God, for of them
among the other heavenly things it is said, " He commanded,
and they were created." "Who, then, will be bold enough to
sujrrrest that the aniicls were made after the six davs' creation ?
If any one is so foolish, his folly is disposed of by a scripture
of like authority, where God says, " "Wlien the stars were
made, the angels praised me with a loud voice." ^ Tlie angels
therefore existed before the stars ; and the stars were made
tlie fourth day. Shall we then say that they were made the
third day ? Far from it ; for we know what was made
that day. Tlie earth was separated from the water, and each
^ Vcr. 35. ^ Ps. cxlviii. 1-5. ^ Job .vxxviii. 7.

BOOK XI.] OF THE TRINITY. 447

element took its own distinct form, and the earth, produced all
that grows on it. On the second day, then ? Not even on
this ; for on it the firmament w^as made between the waters
above and beneath, and was called " Heaven," in which firma-
ment the stars were made on the fourth day. There is no
question, then, that if the angels are included in the works of
God during these six days, they are that light which was
called " Day," and whose unity Scripture signalizes by calling
that day not the " first day," but " one day." ^ For the second
day, the third, and the rest are not other days ; but the same
" one " day is repeated to complete the number six or seven,
so that there should be knowledge both of God's works and
of His rest. For when God said, " Let there be light, and
there w^as light," if we are justified in understanding in this
light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were
created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchange-
able Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and
whom we call the only-begotten Son of God ; so that they,
being illumined by the Light that created them, might them-
selves become light and be called " Day," in participation of
that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God,
by whom both themselves and all else were made. " The true
Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," ^
— this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be
light not in himself, but in God ; from whom if an angel
turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called
unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness
in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light
eternal. For evil has no positive nature ; but the loss of good
has received the name " evil." ^

10. Of the simple and unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one
God, in whom substance and quality are identical.

There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and
therefore alone unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good

> Vives here notes that the Greek theologians and Jerome held, with Plato, that
spiritual creatures were made first, and used by God in the creation of thin^sjs
material. The Latin theologians and Basil held that God made all things at
once.

2 John i. 9.

^ Mali enim nulla natura est : scd amissio boni, mali nomen accepit.

448 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

have all otliers been created, but not simple, and therefore not
imcliangeable. " Created," I say, — that is, made, not begotten.
For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple as
itself, and the same as itself. These two we call the Father
and tlie Son ; and both together with the Holy Spirit are one
God ; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy is in Scripture, as it
were, appropriated. And He is another than the Father and
the Son, for He is neither tlie Father nor the Son. I say
" another," not " another thing," because He is equally with
them the simple Good, unchangeable and co-eternal. And
tliis Trinity is one God ; and none the less simple because a
Trinity. For we do not say that the nature of the good is
simple, because the Father alone possesses it, or the Son alone,
or the Holy Ghost alone ; nor do we say, with the Sabellian
heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity, and has no real
distinction of persons ; but we say it is simple, because it is
what it has, with the exception of the relation of the persons
to one another. For, in regard to this relation, it is true that
the Father has a Son, and yet is not HimseK the Son ; and
the Son has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But,
as regards Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each
is what He has ; thus. He is in HimseK living, for He has
life, and is Himself the Life which He has.

It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is
called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose,
and because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a
cup and the liquor, or a body and its colour, or the air and
the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom. For none
of these is what it has : the cup is not liquor, nor the body
colour, nor the air light and heat, nor the mind wisdom. And
hence they can be deprived of what they have, and can be
turned or changed into other qualities and states, so that the
cup may be emptied of the liquid of which it is full, the body
be discoloured, the air darken, the mind grow silly. The in-
corruptible body whicli is promised to the saints in the re-
surrection cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but
tlie bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not
the same thing. For the quality of incorruption resides
entire in each several part, not greater in one and less in

BOOK XI.] SBirLICITY OF THE TPJNITY. 449

another ; for no part is more incorruptible than another. The
body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part ; and one
part of it is larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger more
incorruptible than the smaller. The body, then, which is not
in each of its parts a whole body, is one thing ; incorrupti-
bility, wliich is throughout complete, is another thing ; — for
every part of the incorruptible body, however unequal to the
rest otherwise, is equally incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is
not more incorrupt than the finger because it is larger than
the finger ; so, though fuiger and hand are unequal, their in-
corruptibility is equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is
inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance of
the body is one thing, the quality of incorruption another.
And therefore the body is not what it has. The soul itself,
too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it
is redeemed), will be so by participating in the unchangeable
wisdom, which it is not ; for though the air be never robbed
of the light that is shed abroad in it, it is not on that account
the same thing as the light. I do not mean that the soul is
air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive a
spuitual nature ;^ but, with much dissimilarity, the two things
have a kind of likeness, which makes it suitable to say that
the immaterial soul is illumined with the immaterial light of
the simple wisdom of God, as the material air is irradiated
with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of
this light, grows dark, (for material darkness is nothing else
than air wanting light,^) so the soul, deprived of the light of
wisdom, grows dark.

According to this, then, those things which are essentially
and truly divine are called simple, because in them quality
and substance are identical, and because they are divine, or
wise, or blessed in themselves, and without extraneous supple-
ment. In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom is

1 Plutarch {De Plac. Phil. i. 3, and iv. 3) tells us that this opinion was held
by Anaximenes of Miletus, the followers of Anaxagoras, and many of the Stoics.
Diogenes the Cynic, as well as Diogenes of Apollonia, seems to have adopted the
same opinion. See Zeller's Stoics, pp. 121 and 199.

2 *'Ubi lux non est, tenebraj sunt, non quia aliquid sunt tenebroe, sed ipsa
lucis absentia tenebrae dicuntur." — Aug. JDe Gen. contra Man. 7.

VOL. I. 2 F

450 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

called "manifold"^ because it contains many things in it; but
what it contains it also is, and it being one is all these things.
For neither are there many wisdoms, but one, in which are
untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual, wherein
are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things visible
and changeable which were created by it.^ For God made
nothing unwittingly ; not even a human workman can be said
to do so. But if He knew all that He made. He made only
those things which He had known. Whence flows a very
striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be
known to us unless it existL-d, but could not have existed
unless it had been known to God.

11. Whether the angels that fell x>(irtooTc of the blessedness which the hohj
angels have always enjoyed from the time of their creation.

And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call
angels were never at any time or in any way darkness, but, as
soon as they were made, were made light ; yet they were not
so created in order that they might exist and live in any way
whatever, but were enlightened that they might live wisely
and blessedly. Some of them, having turned away from this
light, have not won this wise and blessed life, which is cer-
tainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence of its
eternity ; but they have still the life of reason, though dark-
ened with folly, and this they cannot lose, even if they would.
But who can determine to what extent they were partakers
of that wisdom before they fell ? And how shall we say that
they participated in it equally with those who through it arc
truly and fully blessed, resting in a true certainty of eternal
felicity ? For if they had equally participated in this true
knowledge, then the evil angels would have remained eternally
blessed equally with the good, because they were equally ex-
pectant of it. For, though a life be never so long, it cannotr"
be truly callod eternal if it is destined to have an end ; for
it is called life inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal because it
has no end. Wlierefore, although ever}i;hing eternal is not
therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be

1 Wisdom vii. 22.

' The strongly riatonic lingc of tliis language is perhaps best preserved iu a
bare literal trunslatiuu.

BOOK XL] BLESSEDXESS AND PERSEVERANCE. 451

truly and perfectly blessed except it be eternal, tlie life of
these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and
therefore not eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the
one case fear, in tlie other ignorance, prevented them from
being blessed. And even if their ignorance was not so great
as to breed in them a wholly false expectation, but left them
wavering in uncertainty whether their good would be eternal
or would some time terminate, this very doubt concerning so
grand a destiny was incompatible with the plenitude of
blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For
we do not so narrow and restrict the application of the term
" blessedness " as to apply it to God only,^ though doubtless
He is so truly blessed that greater blessedness cannot be ; and,
in comparison of His blessedness, what is that of the angels,
though, according to their capacity, they be perfectly blessed ?

12.-4 comparison of the blessedness of the righteous, who have not yet received the
divine reivard, ivith that of our first parents in p)aradise.

And the angels are not the only members of the rational
and intellectual creation whom we call blessed. For who
will take upon him to deny that those first men in Paradise
'were blessed previously to sin, although they were uncertain
how long their blessedness was to last, and whether it would
be eternal (and eternal it would have been had they not
sinned), — who, I say, will do so, seeing that even now we not
unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a
righteous and holy life in hope of immortality, who have no
harrowing remorse of conscience, but obtain readily divine re-
mission of the sins of their present infirmity ? These, though
they are certain that they shall be rewarded if tliey persevere,
are not certain that they will persevere. For what man can
know that he will persevere to the end in the exercise and
increase of grace, unless he has been certified by some revela-
tion from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while
He deceives none, informs few regarding this matter ? Ac-

' Vives remarks that the ancients defined blessedness as an ahsolutely perfect
state in all good, peculiar to God. Perhaps Augustine had a reminiscence of
tlie remarkable discussion in the Tusc. Disp. lib. v., and the definition "Neque
ulla alia huic verbo, quum beatum dicimus, subjecta notio est, nisi, secretis
malis omnibus, cumulata bononim complexio."

452 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

cordingly, so far as present comfort goes, the first man in
Paradise was more blessed than any just man in this insecure
state ; but as regards the hope of future good, every man who
not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he shall eter-
nally enjoy the most high CJod in the company of angels,
and beyond the reach of ill, — tliis man, no matter what bodily
torments afflict him, is more blessed than was he who, even
in that great felicity ot Paradise, was uncertain of his fate.^

13. Whether all the angels were so created in one common state of felicity, tJuU
those who fell tvere not aware that they would fall, and that those who
stood received assurance of their own perseverance after the ruin of the
fallen.

From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the
blessedness which an intelligent being desires as its legiti-
mate object results from a combination of these two things,
namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good,
which is God ; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and
know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoy-
ment. That it is so with the angels of light we piously
believe ; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default
lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they
sinned, reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any
duration before they fell, we nmst allow them a blessedness
of some kind, though not that which is accompanied with
foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels
were created, some were created in ignorance either of their
perseverance or their fall, while others were most certainly
assured of the eternity of their felicity, — if it is hard to believe
1 that they were not all from the beginning on an equal footing,
until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away
from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to
believe that the holy angels are now uncertain of their eternal
blessedness, and do not know regarding themselves as much
as we have been able to gather regarding them from the Holy
Scriptures. For what catholic Christian does not know that
no new devil will ever arise among the good angels, as he
knows that this present devil will never again return into the

^ With this chapter compare the books De Dono Persever. and De Correp.

et G'ratia.

BOOK XL] OFJGE^AL STATE OF THE AXGELS. 453

fellowship of the good ? For the truth in the gospel pro-
mises to the saints and the faithful that they will be equal to
the angels of God ; and it is also promised them that they
will " go away into life eternal." ^ But if we are certain that
we shall never lapse from eternal felicity, while they are not
certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors.
But as the truth never deceives, and as we shall be their
equals, they must be certain of their blessedness. And be-
cause the evil angels could not be certain of that, since their
blessedness was destined to come to an end, it follows either
that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels
were assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the
perdition of the others ; unless, possibly, some one may say
that the words of the Lord about the devil, " He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth," ^
are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer from
the beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could
Idll by his deceit, was made, but also that he did not abide
in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was
accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but refused
to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a
private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and de-
ceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded;
and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they
are, proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state of things
that does not exist ; so that what the blessed Apostle John
says thus becomes intelligible : " The devil sinneth from the
beginning,"^ — that is, from the time he was created he refused
righteousness which none but a will piously subject to God
can enjoy. AVlioever adopts this opinion at least disagrees
with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other pesti-
lential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from
some adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself
These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they
acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the gospels,
they do not notice that the Lord did not say, " The devil was
naturally a stranger to the truth," but " The devil abode not
in the truth," by which He meant us to understand that he

1 Matt. XXV. 4C. 2 joiin y^ 44, 3 1 j^i^u m g.

454 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

had fallen from the truth, in Avhicli, if he liad abode, he would
have become a partaker of it, and liave remained in blessed-
ness along with the holy angels.^

1-1. An explanation of what is said oj the devil, that he did not abide in the
truth, because the truth was not in him.

Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did
not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying,
" because the truth is not in liim." Xow, it would be in him
had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For,
as the words stand, " He abode not in the truth, because the
truth is not in him," it seems as if the truth's not being in
him were the cause of his not abiding in it ; whereas his not
abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in
him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm : " I
have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, 0 God,"^
where we should expect it to be said. Thou hast heard me,
0 God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said,
" I have called," then, as if some one were seeking proof of
this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer
by the effect of God's hearing it ; as if he had said, The proof
that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.

15. IIow we are to understand the words, ** Tlie devil sinnetli from the
beginning."

As for what John says about the devil, " The devil sinneth
from the beginning,"^ they^ who suppose it is meant hereby
that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand
it ; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do
they answer the proplietic proofs, — either what Isaiah says
when he represents the devil under the person of the king of
Babylon, " How art thou fallen, 0 Lucifer, son of the morn-
ing!"'^ or what Ezekiel says, "Thou hast been in Eden, the
garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,''^
where it is meant that he was some time without sin ; for
a little after it is still more explicitly said, "Thou wast
perfect in thy ways ?" And if these passages cannot well be
otlierwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also,
" He abode not in the truth," that he was once in the truth,

1 Cf. Oe7i. ad Lit. xi. 27 et seqq. "'' Ps. xvii, G. ^ 1 John iii. 8.

* The MaiiicluL-aiio. ^ U:\. xlv. 12. ^ E/ck. xxviii. 13.

BOOK XI.] EELATIYE VALUE OF CREATURES. 455

but did not remain in it. And from tliis passage, " The devil
sinneth from the beginning/' it is not to be supposed that he
sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from
the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once
commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of
Job, of which the devil is the subject : " This is the beginning
of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His
angels,"^ which agrees with the psalm, where it is said,
" There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport
therein."^ But these passages are not to lead us to suppose
that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the
angels, but that he was_d£qmed to this punishment after his
sin. His. beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there
is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the
beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has pro-
ceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing
can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this
angelic nature, which surpasses in dignity all else that He has
made, the handiwork of the Most High !

16. Of the ranks and differences of the creatures, estimated hy their utility, or
according to the natural gradations of being.

For, amontr those heinous which exist, and which are not of
God the Creator's essence, those which have life are ranked
above those which have none ; those that have the power of
generation, or even of desiring, above those which want this
faculty. And, among things that have life, the sentient are
higher than those which have no sensation, as animals are
ranked above trees. And, among the sentient, the intelligent
are above those that have not intelligence, — men, e.g., above
cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal, such as the
angels, above the mortal, such as men. These are the grada-
tions according to the order of nature ; but according to the
utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards
of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things
that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong
is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish
the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the
place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing

1 Job xl. 14 (LXX.). 2 i>^. civ. 20.

456 THE CITY OF GOD. ' [BOOK XT.

them to our o^vn convenience. AVlio, e.g., would not rather
have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas ? But
there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when
valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the
highest dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a
slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one
contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from
those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of
the voluptuous ; for the former considers what value a thing
in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers
how it meets its need ; reason looks for what the mental liixht
will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly
titillates the bodily sense. But of such consequence in
rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love,
that thougli in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet,
by the scale of justice, good men are of greater value tlian
bad angels.

17. That thejiaw of ivlckedness is not nature, hut contrary to nature, and has
its origin, not in the Creator, hut in the will.

•^ It is with reference to the natui'e, then, and not to the
wickedness of the devil, that we are to understand these
words, "This is the beginning of God's handiwork;"^ for,
without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice"^ only where
the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so con-
trary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore
departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature
wliose property it was to abide with God. So that even the
wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of tlie nature.
But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good
natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Euler; so that,
while they make an ill use of good natures. He makes a good
use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good
by God's creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down
from his liigh position, and to become tlie mockery ot llis
angels, — that is. He caused his temptations to benefit those
whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when

•Job. xl. 14(LXX.).

• It must be ki-pt in view that "vice" luui, in this passage, the moaning of
sinful blemish.

BOOK XI.] THE ELOQUENCE OF HISTORY. 457

He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future
malignity, and foresaw the good which He Himself would
bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, " This leviathan
whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein," -^ that we may see
that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He
yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make
use of him when he became wicked.

18. Of the beauty of the universe, which becomes, by God^s ordinance, more
brilliant by the opposition of contraries.

Por God would never have created any, I do not say angel,
but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless
He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good
He could turn him, thus embellishing the course of the
ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses.
For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant
of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in Latin
'' oppositions," or, to speak more accurately, " contrapositions ;"
but this word is not in common use among us,^ though the
Latin, and indeed the languages of all nations, avail them-
selves of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle
to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use
of antithesis, in that place where he says, " By the armour of
righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour
and dishonour, by evil report and good report : as deceivers,
and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known ; as dying,
and, behold, we live ; as chastened, and not killed ; as sorrow-
ful, yet alway rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things."^ As, then,
these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the language,
so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the
opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence
not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly stated in
the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way : " Good is set against
evil, and life against death : so is the sinner against the godly.
So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are
two and two, one against another."*

1 Ps. civ. 26.

2 Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.

3 2 Cor. vi. 7-10. •* Eccius. x.xxiii. 15.

458 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XT.

19. What, seemiiujly, xve are to understand hy the words, " God divided the
light from the darkness."

Accordingly, tliougli the obscurity of the divine word has cer-
tainly this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the
truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh
meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure
passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious
facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts.
This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at
last reached after the discussion of many other inteq^retations,
or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are
brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does
not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we under-
stand that the angels were created when that first light was
made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the
unclean angels, w^hen, as is said, " God divided the light from
the darkness ; and God called the light Day, and the darkness
He called Night." For He alone could make this discrimina-
tion, who was able also, before they fell, to foreknow that they
would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they
would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards
the day and night, with which we are familiar. He com-
manded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our
senses to divide between the light and the darkness. " Let
there be," He says, " lights in the firmament of the heaven, to
divide the day from the night ;" and shortly after He says,
" And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give
light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness."^ But
between that light, which is the holy company of the angels
spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and
that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the
spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from
the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from
whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet
it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.

'Gen. i. 11 IS.

BOOK XL] god's APPEOVAL OF CEEATION. 459

20. Of the ivords lohkh follow the separation of light and darkness^ " And God

sail) the light that it was good."

Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture
without noticing that when God said, " Let there be light,
and there was light," it was immediately added, "And God
saw tlie light that it was good." ISTo such expression followed
the statement that He separated the light from the darkness,
and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal
of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as
well as on the light. For when the darkness was- not subject
of disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly
bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement
that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but
after the division is recorded. " And God set them," so runs
the passage, "in the firmament of the heaven, to give light
upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness : and God saw that
it was good." For He approved of both, because both were
sinless. But where God said, " Let there be light, and there
was light; and God saw the light that it was good;" and
the narrative goes on, " and God divided the light from the
darkness : and God called the light Day, and the darkness He
called Mght," there was not in this place subjoined the state-
ment, "And God saw that it was good," lest both should be
designated good, while one of them was evil, not by nature,
but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light
alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic
darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.

21. Of God's eternal and unchangealle knowledge and will, whereby all He has

made j^leased Him in the eternal design as well as in the actual result.

For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain,
" And God saw that it was good," than the approval of the
work in its design, which is the wisdom of God ? For cer-
tainly God did not in the actual achievement of the work
first learn that it was good, but, on the contrary, nothing
would have been made had it not been first known by Him.
While, therefore. He sees that that is good which, had He not
seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it is
plain that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good.

460 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe
was completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy.^ And
Plato was not so foolish as to mean by this that God was
rendered more blessed by the novelty of His creation ; but he
wished thus to indicate that the work now completed met with
its Maker's approval, as it had while yet in design. It is not
as if the knowledge of God were of various kinds, knowing
in different ways things which as yet are not, things which
are, and things wliich have been. For not in our fashion
does He look forward to what is future, nor at what is present,
nor back upon what is past ; but in a manner quite different
and far and profoundly remote from our way of thinking. For
He does not pass from this to that by transition of thouglit,
but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness ; so
that of those thini^s which emerfre in time, the future, indeed,
are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no longer
are ; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable
and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by
the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of
mind and body ; nor does His present knowledge differ from
that which it ever was or shall be, for those variations of time,
past, present, and future, though they alter our knowledge, do
not affect His, " with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning."^ Neither is there any growth from thought to
thought in the conceptions of Him in whose spiritual vision
all things which He knows are at once embraced. For as
without any movement that time can measure, He Himself
moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a
knowledge that time cannot measure. And therefore He
saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it
was good to make it. And when He saw it made. He had
not on that accounl a twofold nor any way increased know-
ledge of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made
what He saw. For certainly He would not be the perfect

^ The reference is to the Thncrus, p. 37 C, where he says, "When the paront
Creator perceived tliis created image of the eternal gods in life and motion, He
was delighted, and in His joy considered how He might make it still likcr its
model."

"" Jiis. i. 17.

BOOK XI.] GOOD IN ALL CREATED THINGS. 461

worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to
receive no addition from His finished works. Wherefore, if
the only object had been to inform ns who made the light, it
had been enough to say, " God made the light ;" and if further
information regarding the means by which it was made had
been intended, it would have sufficed to say, "And God said,
Let there be light, and there was light," that we might know
not only that God had made the world, but also that He had
made it by the word. But because it was right that three
leading truths regarding the creature be intimated to us, viz.,
wlio made it, by what means, and why, it is written, " God
said. Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw
the light that it was good." If, then, we ask who made it,
it was " God." If, by what means, He said " Let it be," and
it was. If we ask, why He made it, " it was good." Neither
is there any author more excellent than God, nor any skill
more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause better
than that good might be created by the good God. This also
Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation
of the world, that good works might be made by a good God ;^
whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of
these things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-
sighted genius, penetrated to things spiritual and invisible
through the things that are created, or was instructed regard-
ing them by those who had discerned them.

22. Of those icho do not approve of certain thiinjs ivJdch are a part of this good
creation of a good Creator, and who think that there is some natural evil.

This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the good-^
ness of God, — this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when
piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies
of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been
recognised by some heretics,^ because there are, forsooth, many
things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do
not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our

* The passage referred to is in the Timceus, p. 29 D. : "Let us say what was
the cause of the Creator's forming this universe. He was good ; and in the
good no envy is ever generated aboiit anything whatever. Therefore, being
free from envy, He desired that all things should, as much as possible, resemble
Himself."

2 The Manichseans, to wit.

402 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

flesh, wliicli is at present under just punishment. They do
not consider how admira])le these things are in their own
places, how excellent in their own natures, how beautifully
adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much gi^ace they
contribute to the universe by their own contributions as to a
conimonwealtli ; and how serviceable they are even to our-
selves, if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adapta-
tions,— so that even poisons, which are destructive when used
injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used
in conformity with their qualities and design ; just as, on the
other hand, those things which give us pleasure, such as food,
drink, and the licrht of the sun, are found to be hurtful when
immoderately or unseasonably used. And thus divine provi-
dence admonishes us not foolisldy to vituperate things, but to
investigate their utility with care ; and, where our mental
capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a
utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were
other things which we all but failed to discover. For this
concealment of the use of tilings is itself either an exercise of
our humility or a levelling of our pride ; for no nature at all
is evil, and this is a name for nothimr but the want of <]:ood.
But from things earthly to things heavenly, from the visible
to the invisible, there are some things better than others ; and
for this purpose are they unequal, in order that they might
all exist. Kow God is in such sort a great worker in great
things, that He is not less in little things, — for these little
things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which
does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer ; as, in
the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off,
how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how mucli
from the beauty ! — for that is not constituted by bulk, but by
the proportion and arrangement of tlie members. But we
do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some
evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of
opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause
of the creation was tliis, that tlie good God produced a good
creation. For they believe that lie was driven to this enter-
prise of creation by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil
that warred against Him, and tliat He mixed His good natui'e

BOOK XI.] OPvIGEN's ERROR REGARDING CREATIOX. 463

with the evil for the sake of restraining and conquering it ;
and that this nature of His, being thus shamefully polluted,
and most cruelly oppressed and held captive, He labours to
cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains does not wholly
succeed ; but such part of it as could not be cleansed from
that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the con-
quered and incarcerated enemy. The Manichseans would not
drivel, or rather, rave in such a style as this, if they believed
the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely
incorruptible, and subject to no injury ; and if, moreover, they
held in Christian sobriety, that the soul which has shown
itself capable of being altered for the worse by its own will,
and of being corrupted by sin, and so, of being deprived of the
light of eternal truth, — that this soul, I say, is not a part of
God, nor of the same nature as God, but is created by Him,
and is far different from its Creator.

23. Of the error in wJi'ich the doctrine of 0 rig en is involved.

But it is much more surprising that soiiie even of those
who, with ourselves, believe that there is one only source of
all things, and that no nature which is not divine can exist
unless originated by that Creator, have yet refused to accept
with a good and simple faith this so good and smiple a reason
of the world's creation, that a good God made it good ; and
that the things created, being different from God, were inferior
to Him, and yet were good, being created by none other than
He. But they say that souls, though not, indeed, parts of God,
but created by Him, sinned by abandoning God ; that, in pro-
portion to their various sins, they merited different degrees of
debasement from heaven to earth, and diverse bodies as prison-
houses ; and that this is the world, and this the cause of its
creation, not the production of good things, but the restraining
of evil. Origen is justly blamed for holding this opinion. For
in the books which he entitles irepl apyjhv, that is. Of origins,
this is his sentiment, this his utterance. And I cannot suffi-
ciently express my astonishment, that a man go erudite and
well versed in ecclesiastical literature, should not have observed,
in the first place, how opposed this is to the meaning of this
authoritative Scripture, ^\'hich, in recounting all the works of

464 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XT.

God, regularly adds, " And God saw that it was good ;" and,
when all were completed, inserts the words, "And God saw
everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good." ^
Was it not obviously meant to be understood that there was
no other cause of the world's creation than that good creatures
should be made by a good God ? In this creation, had no one
sinned, the world would have been filled and beautified with
natures good without exception ; and though there is sin, all
things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of
the heavenly inhabitants preserve their nature's integrity.
And the sinful will, though it violated the order of its own
nature, did not on that account escape the laws of God, who
justly orders all things for good. For as the beauty of a
picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye
that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by
sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is
a sad blemish.

In the second place, Origen, and all who think with liim,
ought to have seen that if it were the true opinion that the
world was created in order that souls might, for their sins, be
accommodated with bodies in which they should be shut up
as in houses of correction, the more venial sinners receiving
lighter and more ethereal bodies, while the grosser and graver
sinners received bodies more crass and grovelling, then it
would follow that the devils, who are deepest in wickedness,
ought, rather than even wicked men, to have eartlily bodies, since
these arc the grossest and least ethereal of all. But in point
of fact, that we might see that the deserts of souls are not to
be estimated by the qualities of bodies, the wickedest devil
possesses an ethereal body, wliile man, wicked, it is true, but
with a wickedness smaU and venial in comj)arison with his,
received even before his sin a body of clay. And wliat more
foolish assertion can be advanced than tliat God, by this sun of
ours, did not design to benefit the material creation, or lend
lustre to its loveliness, and therefore created one single sun
for this single world, but that it so happened that one soul
only had so sinned as to deserve to be enclosed in such a
body as it is ? On this principle, if it had chanced that not

^ Gcu. i. 31.

BOOK XI.] TRINITY REVEALED IN CREATION. 465

one, but two, yea, or ten, or a hundred had sinned similarly,
and with a like degree of guilb, then this world would have
one hundred suns. And that such is not the case, is due not
to the considerate foresight of the Creator, contriving the
safety and beauty of things material, but rather to the fact
that so fine a quality of sinning was hit upon by only one
soul, so that it alone has merited such a body. Manifestly
persons holding such opinions should aim at confining, not
souls of which they know not what they say, but themselves,
lest they fall, and deservedly, far indeed from the truth. And
as to these three answers which I formerly recommended when
in the case of any creature the questions are put. Who made
it ? By what means ? Wliy ? that it should be replied, God, By
the Word, Because it was good, — as to these three answers, it
is very questionable whether the Trinity itself is thus mys-
tically indicated, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, or whether there is some good reason for this accepta-
tion in this passage of Scripture, — this, I say, is questionable,
and one can't be expected to explain everything in one volume.

24. Of the divine Trinity, and the indications of its presence scattered every-
ivhere among its works.

We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the
Father begat the Word, that is. Wisdom, by which all things
were made, the only-begotten Son, one as the Father is one,
eternal as the Father is eternal, and, equally with the Father,
supremely good ; and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit alike
of Father and of Son, and is Himself consubstantial and co-
eternal with both ; and that this whole is a Trinity by reason
of the individuality ^ of the persons, and one God by reason
of the indivisible divine substance, as also one Almighty by
reason of the indivisible omnipotence; yet so that, when we
inquire regarding each singly, it is said that each is God
and Almighty ; and, wdien we speak of all together, it is said
that tliere are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but one
God Almighty; so great is the indivisible unity of these
Three, which requires that it be so stated. But, wlietlier
tlie Holy Spirit of the Father, and of the Son, who are botli
good, can be with propriety called the goodness of both, be-

^ Proprietas.
VOL. L 2 G

466 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

cause He is conuiion to botli, I do not presume to determine
hastily. Xevertlieless, I would have less hesitation in saying
that He is the holiness of both, not as if He were a divine
attribute merely, but Himself also the divine substance, and
the third person in the Trinity. I am the rather emboldened
to make this statement, because, though the Father is a spirit,
and the Son a spirit, and the Father holy, and the Son holy,
yet the third person is distinctively called the Holy Spirit,
as if He were the substantial holiness consubstantial with the
other two. But if the divine goodness is nothing else than
the divine holiness, then certainly it is a reasonable studious-
ness, and not presumptuous intrusion, to inquu^e whether the
same Trinity be not hinted at in an enigmatical mode of
speech, by which our incpiiry is stimulated, when it is written
who made each creature, and by what means, and why. For
it is the Father of the Word who said. Let there be. And
that which was made when He spoke was certainly made by
means of the Word. And by the words, " God saw that it
was good," it is sufficiently intimated that God made what
was made not from any necessity, nor for the sake of supply-
ing any want, but solely from His own goodness, i.e., because
it was good. And this is stated after the creation had taken
place, that there might be no doubt that the thing made satis-
fied the goodness on account of which it was made. And if
we are right in understanding that this goodness is the Holy
Spirit, then the whole Trinity is revealed to us in the crea-
tion. In this, too, is the origin, the enlightenment, the blessed-
ness of the holy city which is above among the holy angels.
For if we inquire whence it is, God created it ; or whence its
wisdom, God illiunined it ; or whence its blessedness, God is
its bliss. It has its form by subsisting in Him ; its enlighten-
ment by contemplating Him ; its joy by abiding in Him. It
is ; it sees ; it loves. In God's eternity is its life ; in God's
truth its light ; in God's goodness its joy.

25. of the divition of i>hilosophy into three jyarfs.

As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that
philosophers have aimed at a tln-eefold division of science,
or rather, were enabled to see that there was a threefold divi-

BOOK XI.] THREEFOLD DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY. 467

sion (for they did not invent, but only discovered it), of which
one part is called physical, another logical, the third ethical.
The Latin equivalents of these names are now naturalized in
the writings of many authors, so that these divisions are called
natural, rational, and moral, on which I have touched slightly
in the eighth book. Not that I would conclude that these
philosophers, in this threefold division, had any thought of a
trinity in God, although Plato is said to have been the first
to discover and promulgate this distribution, and he saw that
God alone could be the author of nature, the bestower of in-
telligence, and the kindler of love by which life becomes good
and blessed. But certain it is that, though philosophers dis-
agree both regarding the nature of things, and the mode of
investigating truth, and of the good to which all our actions
ought to tend, yet in these tln^ee great general questions all
their intellectual energy is spent. And though there be a
confusing diversity of opinion, every man striving to establish
his own opinion in regard to each of these questions, yet no
one of them all doubts that nature has some cause, science
some method, life some end and aim. Then, again, there are
three things which every artificer must possess if he is to effect
anything, — nature, education, practice. Nature is to be judged
by capacity, education by knowledge, practice by its fruit. I
am aware that, properly speaking, fruit is what one enjoys, use
[practice] what one uses. And this seems to be the difference
between them, that we are said to enjoy that which in itself,
and irrespective of other ends, delights us ; to iise that which
we seek for the sake of some end beyond. For which reason
the things of time are to be used rather than enjoyed, that we
may deserve to enjoy things eternal; and not as those per-
verse creatures who would fain enjoy money and use God, —
not spending money for God's sake, but worshipping God for
money's sake. However, in common parlance, we both use
fruits and enjoy uses. For we correctly speak of the " fruits
of the field," which certainly we all use in the present life.
And it was in accordance with this usage that I said that
there were three things to be observed in a man, nature,
education, practice. From tliese the philosophers have ela-
borated, as I said, the threefold division of that science by

468 THE CITY OF 'god. [bOOK XT.

which a blessed life is attained : the natural having respect to
nature, the rational to education, the moral to practice. If,
then, we were ourselves the authors of our nature, we should
have generated knowledge in ourselves, and should not require
to reach it by education, i.e., by learning it from others. Our
love, too, proceeding from ourselves and returning to us, would
suffice to make our life blessed, and would stand in need of no
extraneous enjoyment. But now, since our nature has God as
its requisite author, it is certain that we must have Him for
our teacher that we may be wise ; Him, too, to dispense to us
spiritual sweetness that we may be blessed.

26. Of the image of the supreme Trinity, which loefind in some sort in human
nature even in its present state.

And we indeed recognise in ourselves the image of God,
that is, of the supreme Trinity, an image which, though it be
not equal to God, or rather, though it be very far removed from
Him, — being neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, con-
substantial with Him, — is yet nearer to Him in nature than
any other of His works, and is destined to be yet restored,
that it may bear a still closer resemblance. For we both are,
and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our
knowledge of it. ^loreover, in these three things no true-
seeming illusion disturbs us ; for we do not come into contact
with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things
outside of us, — colours, e.fj., by seeing, sounds by hearing,
smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by
touching, — of all which sensible objects it is the images
resembling them, but not themselves which we perceive in
the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to
desire the objects. But, witliout any delusive representation
of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and
that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths,
I am not at all afraid of the argmnonts of the Academicians,
who say, Wliat if you are deceived ? For if I am deceived,
I am.^ For he wlio is not, cannot be deceived ; and if I am

^ Tills is one of tlio jias.snges cited by Sir "William Hamilton, along with tho
" Cogito, ergo sum" of Dcsi;artes, in conlirniation of his proof, that in so far as
we are ronxcious of certain modes of existence, in so far we possess an absolute
certainty that we exist. See note A in Hamilton's Rtid, p. 744.

BOOK XL] COGITO, ERGO SUM. 469

deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am
deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am ? for it is
certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the
person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly
I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, con-
sequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know.
For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know.
And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain
third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For
neither am I deceived in tliis, that I love, since in those
things which I love I am not deceived ; though even if these
were false, it would still be true that I loved false things.
For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving
false thine^s, if it were false that I loved them ? But, since
they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved,
the love of them is itself true and real ? Further, as there is
no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one
who does not wish to be. For how can he be happy, if he
is nothing ?

27. Of existence, and knowledge of it, and the love of both.
And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell
so pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason,
unwilling to perish ; and, when they feel that they are
wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but
that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their
own esteem, and in point of fact, are utterly wretched, and
who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on account of
their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and
who think them wretched because they are poor and desti-
tute,— if any one should give these men an immortality, in
which their misery should be deathless, and should ofier the
alternative, that if they shrank from existing eternally in the
same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere
at all, nor in any condition, on the instant they would joy-
fully, nay exultantly, make election to exist always, even in
such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The well-
known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we
see that they fear to die, and will rather live in such mis-
fortune than end it by death, is it not obvious enough how

470 THE CITY OF GOD. [eOOK XT.

nature shrinks from anniliilation ? And, accordingly, when
they know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon,
that this mercy be shown them, that tliey may a little longer
live in the same misery, and delay to end it by death. And
so they indubitably prove with wliat glad alacrity they would
accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless
destruction. What ! do not even all irrational animals, to
whom such calculations are unknown, from the huf^e dracjons
down to the least worms, all testify that they wish to exist,
and therefore shun death by every movement in their power ?
Nay, the very pLants and shrul)5, wliich have no such life as
enables tliem to shun destruction by movements we can see,
do not they all seek, in their own fashion, to conserve their
existence, by rooting themselves more and more deeply in the
earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out
healtliy branches towards the sky ? In fine, even the lifeless
bodies, which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet
either seek the upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an
intermediate position, so that they may protect their existence
in that situation where they can exist in most accordance
with their nature.

And how much human nature loves the knowlediie of its
existence, and how it shrinks from being deceived, will be
sufficiently understood from this fact, that every man prefers
to grieve in a sane mind, rather than to be glad in madness.
And this grand and wonderful instinct belongs to men alone
of all animals ; for, though some of them have keener eyesight
than ourselves for this world's light, they cannot attain to that
spiritual light with which our mind is somehow irradiated,
so that we can form right judgments of all things. For OTir
power to judge is proportioned to our acceptance of this light.
Nevertheless, the irrational animals, though they have not
knowledge, have certainly something resembling knowledge ;
whereas the other material things are said to be sensible, not
because they have senses, but because they are the objects of
our senses. Yet among plants, their nourishment and gene-
ration have some reseml dance to sensible life. However, both
these and all material things have their causes hidden in their
nature ; but their outward forms, wliich lend beauty to this

BOOK XI.] LMAGE OF THE TRINITY IX MAX. 471

visible structure of the world, are perceived by our senses, so
that they seem to wish to compensate for their o^vn want of
knowledge by providing us with knowledge. But we perceive
them by our bodily senses in such a way that we do not
judge of them by these senses. For we have another and far
superior sense, belonging to the inner man, by which we per-
ceive what things are just, and what unjust, — ^just by means
ot an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of it. This sense is
aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor by the
orifice of the ear, nor by the air-holes of the nostrils, nor by
the palate's taste, nor by any bodily touch. By it I am
assured both that I am, and that I know this ; and these two
I love, and in the same manner I am assured that I love
them.

23. Whether ive ought to love the love itself with ivhlch-ive love our existence and
our knowledge of it, that so toe may more nearly resemble the image of
the divine Trinity.

We have said as much as the scope of this work demands
reixardin£j these two thinf^s, to wit, our existence, and our
knowledge of it, and how much they are loved by us, and
how there is found even in the lower creatures a kind of like-
ness of these things, and yet with a difference. We have yet
to speak of the love wherewith they are loved, to determine
whether this love itself is loved. And doubtless it is ; and
this is the proof Because in men who are justly loved, it is
rather love itself that is loved ; for he is not justly called a
good man who knows what is good, but who loves it. Is it
not then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love
wherewith we love whatever good we love ? For there is
also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to
love ; and this love is hated by him who loves that where-
with he loves what ought to be loved. For it is quite pos-
sible for both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is
good for a man, to the end that this love which conduces to
our living well may grow, and the other, which leads us to
evil may decrease, until our whole life be perfectly healed
and transmuted into good. For if we were beasts, we should
love the fleshly and sensual life, and this would be our
sufficient good ; and when it was well with us in respect of

472 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XT.

it, we should seek notliing beyond. In like manner, if we
were trees, we could not, indeed, in the strict sense of the
word, love anything ; nevertheless w^e should seem, as it were,
to long for that by which we might become more abundantly
and luxuriantly fruitful. If we were stones, or waves, or
wind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we should want,
indeed, both sensation and life, yet should possess a kind of
attraction towards our own proper position and natural order.
For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it w^ere, their love,
whether they are carried downwards by their weight, or up-
wards by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity,
as the spirit by love, whithersoever it is borne.^ But we are
men, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity is
true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is eternal and
true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity,
without confusion, without separation ; and, therefore, while, as
we run over all the w^orks which He has established, we may
detect, as it were, His footprints, now more and now less
distinct even in those things that are beneath us, since they
could not so much as exist, or be bodied forth in any shape,
or follow and observe any law, had they not been made by
Him who supremely is, and is supremely good and supremely
wase ; yet in ourselves beholding His image, let us, like that
younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and
return to Him from whom by our sin we had departed.
There our being will have no death, our knowledge no error,
our love no mishap. But now, though we are assured of our
possession of these three things, not on the testimony of others,
l)ut by our own consciousness of their presence, and because
we see them with our own most truthful interior vision, yet,
as we cannot of ourselves know how long they are to continue,
and wlicthcr tliey shall never cease to be, and what issue their
good or ])ad use will lead to, we seek for others who can
acquaint us of these things, if we have not already found
them. Of the trustworthiness of these witnesses, there will,
not now, but subsequently, be an opportunity of speaking.
But in this book let us go on as we have begun, with God's
help, to speak of tlie city of God, not in its state of pilgri-

' Compare the Con/t'saioiu^, xiii. 9.

BOOK XL] ANGELIC KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 473

mage and mortality, but as it exists ever immortal in the
heavens, — that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain
their allegiance to God, who never were, nor ever shall be,
apostate, between whom and those who forsook light eternal
and became darkness, God, as we have already said, made at
the first a separation.

29. Of the knoivledge by which the holy angels know God in His essence, and by
ivhich they see the causes of His works in the art of the worker, before
they see them in the works of the artist.

Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by
audible words, but by the presence to their souls of im-
mutable truth, i.e., of the only-begotten Word of God ; and
they know this Word Himself, and the Father, and their
Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is indivisible, and that
the three persons of it are one substance, and that there
are not three Gods but one God ; and this they so know, that
it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves.
Thus, too, they know the creature also, not in itself, but by this
better way, in the wisdom of God, as if in the art by which
it was created; and, consequently, they know themselves
better in God than in themselves, though they have also
this latter knowledge. For they were created, and are
different from their Creator. In Him, therefore, they have,
as it were, a noonday knowledge ; in themselves, a twilight
knowledge, according to our former explanations.^ For there
is a great difference between knowing a thing in the design
in conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself,
— e.g., the straightness of lines and correctness of figures is
known in one way when mentally conceived, in another when
described on paper; and justice is known in one way in the
unchangeable truth, in another in the spirit of a just man.
So is it with all other things, — as, the firmament between the
water above and below, which w^as called the heaven; the
gathering of the waters beneath, and the laying bare of the
dry land, and the production of plants and trees ; the creation
of sun, moon, and stars ; and of the animals out of the waters,
fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep ; and of everything
that walks or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who

1 Ch. 7.

474 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK XT.

excels all that is on tlie earth, — all these tilings are known
in one way by the anj:,'els in the AVord of God, in which they
see the eternally abiding causes and reasons according to which
they were made, and in another way in themselves : in the
former, with a clearer knowledge ; in the latter, with a know-
ledge dimmer, and rather of the bare works than of the desifjn.
Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and adoration
of the Creator Himself, it is as if morning dawned in the
minds of those who contemplate them.

30. Of the perfection of the number six, which is the first of the nutniers
which is composed of its aliquot parts.

These works are recorded to have been completed in six
days (the same day being six times repeated), because six
is a perfect number, — not because God required a protracted
time, as if He could not at once create all things, which then
should mark the course of time by the movements proper to
them, but because the perfection of the works w^as signified
by the number six. For the number six is the first which is
made up of its own^ parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and half,
wdiich are respectively one, tw^o, and three, and which make
a total of six. In this way of looking at a number, those are
said to be its parts which exactly divide it, as a half, a tliird,
a fourth, or a fraction with any denominator, — e.g., four is a
part of nine, but not therefore an aliquot part ; but one is, for
it is the ninth part ; and three is, for it is the third. Yet
these two parts, the ninth and the third, or one and three, are
far from making its whole sum ot nine. So again, in the
number ten, four is a part, yet does not divide it ; but one is
an aliquot part, for it is a tenth ; so it has a fifth, which is
two ; and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth,
a fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five, added together, do not
make ten, but eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts
added together exceed the whole ; for it has a twelth, that is,
one ; a sixth, or two ; a fourth, which is three ; a third, which
is four ; and a half, which is six. But one, two, three, four, and
six make up, not twelve, but more, viz. sixteen. So much I
have thought fit to state fur the sake of illustrating the per-
fection of the number six, which is, as I said, the first which

* Or :ili(iuot parts.

BOOK XI.] SirxXIFICAXCE OF NUMBERS. 475

is exactly made up of its own parts added together ; and in
this number of days God finished His work.-^ And, therefore,
we must not despise the science of numbers, which, in many
passages of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent ser-
vice to the careful interpreter.^ Neither has it been without
reason numbered among God's praises, " Thou hast ordered
all things in number, and measure, and weight."^

31. Of the seventh day, in which completeness and repose are celebrated.

But, on the seventh day {i.e., the same day repeated seven
times, which number is also a perfect one, though for another
reason), the rest of God is set forth, and then, too, we first
hear of its beino: hallowed. So that God did not wish to
hallow this day by His works, but by His rest, which has no
evening, for it is not a creature ; so that, being known in one
way in the Word of God, and in another in itself, it should
make a twofold knowledge, daylight and dusk (day and even-
ing). Much more might be said about the perfection of the
number seven, but this book is already too long, and I fear
lest I should seem to catch at an opportunity of airing my
little smattering of science more childislily than profitably.
I must speak, therefore, in moderation and with dignity, lest,
in too keenly following " number," I be accused of forgetting
" weight " and " measure." Suffice it here to say, that three
is the first whole number that is odd, four the first that is
even, and of these two, seven is composed. On this account
it is often put for all numbers together, as, "A just man
falleth seven times, and riseth up again,"* — that is, let him
fall never so often, he will not perish (and this was meant
to be understood not of sins, but of afflictions conducing to
lowliness). Again, "Seven times a day will I praise Thee,"^
which elsewhere is expressed thus, " I will bless the Lord at
all times!' ^ And many such instances are found in the divine
authorities, in which the number seven is, as I said, commonly
used to express the whole, or the completeness of anything.

1 Comp. A\\^. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 2, and De Trinitate, iv. 7.

2 For passages illustrating early opinions regarding numbers, see Smith's
Diet. Art. number.

3 Wisd. xi. 20. ^ Trov. xxiv. IG. ^ pg. cxix. IGi. ° Ts. xxxiv. 1.

470 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

And so the Holy Spirit, of ^vllom the Lord says, " He will
teach you all truth," ^ is signified by this number.'^ In it is
the rest of God, the rest His peo|)le lind in Him. For rest is
in the whole, i.e. in perfect completeness, while in the part
there is labour. And thus we labour as long as we know in
])art; "but when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away."^ It is even with toil
we search into the Scriptures themselves. But the holy angels,
towards whose society and assembly we sigh while in this
our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal
home, so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and
felicity of rest. It is without difficulty that they help us ;
for their spiritual movements, pure and free, cost them no
effort.

32. Of the opinion that the angels were created be/ore the world.

But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the
holy angels are not referred to when it is said, " Let there
be light, and there was light ;" if he suppose or teach that
some material light, then first created, was meant, and that
the angels were created, not only before the firmament divid-
in^r the waters and named " the heaven," but also before the
time signified in the words, " In tlie beginning God created
the heaven and the earth ;" if he allege that this phrase, " In
the befrinnintx," does not mean that nothing was made before
(for the angels were), but that God made all things by His
Wisdom or Word, who is named in Scripture " the Beginning,"
as He Himself, in the gospel, replied to the Jews Avhen they
asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning ;'* — I will
not contest the point, cliiefly because it gives me the liveliest
satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated in the very beginning
of the book of Genesis. For, having said, "In the Beginning
(J 0(1 created the heaven and tlie earth," meaning that the
Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where
it says, " How manifold are Tliy works, 0 Lord ! in Wisdom

1 John xvi. 13.

' In Isa. xi. 2, ns he .shows in liis ci;;htli sermon, wliore tliis sulytct is furthtr
pursued ; ot]ler^vise, one might have supposed he referred to Kcv. iii. 1.

' 1 Cor. xiii. 10.

* Augustine refers to John viii. '25 ; see p. 415. He might ratlicr luive referred
to ^lev. 'ii. 11.

BOOK XL] CREATION OF ANGELS. 477

hast Thou made them all"-^), a little afterwards mention is
fitly made of the Holy Spirit also. For, when it had been
told us what kind of earth God created at first, or what the
mass or matter was which God, under the name of " heaven
and earth," had provided for the construction of the world, as
is told in the additional words, " And the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep," then, for the sake of completing the mention of the
Trinity, it is immediately added, "And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters." Let each one, then,
take it as he pleases ; for it is so profound a passage, that it
may well suggest, for the exercise of the reader's tact, many
opinions, and none of them widely departing from the rule of
faith. At the same time, let none doubt that the holy angels in
their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal witli
God, yet secure and certain of eternal and true felicity. To
their company the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and
not only says, " They shall be equal to the angels of God,"^ but
shows, too, what blessed contemplation the angels themselves
enjoy, saying, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones : for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do
always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."^

33. OftJie two different and dissimilar communities oj angels, which are not
inapprojyrlatebj sirjnijied hy the names light and darkness.

That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the
lowest parts of this world, where they are, as it were, incarcer-
ated till their final damnation in the day of judgment, the
Apostle Peter very plainly declares, when he says that " God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto
judgment."^ Who, then, can doubt that God, either in fore-
knowledge or in act, separated between these and the rest ?
And who will dispute that the rest are justly called " light ? "
For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping only and not
yet enjoying equality with them, are abeady called " light " by
the apostle : " For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are
ye light in the Lord."^ But as for these apostate angels, all

1 Ps. civ. 24. 2 T^iatt. xxii. 30. 3 ;Matt. xviii. 10.

4 2 Peter ii. 4. « Eph. v. 8.

478 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK XI.

wlio understand or believe them to be worse tlian unbe-
lieving men are well aware tliat tliey are called " darkness."
^Mierefore, tliough light and darkness are to be taken in theii
literal signification in these passages of Genesis in which it is
said, " God said, Let there be light, and tliere was light," and
" God divided the light from the darkness," yet, for our part,
we understand these two societies of angels, — the one enjoying
God, the other swelling with pride ; the one to whom it is
said, " Praise ye Him, all His angels,"^ the other whose prince
says, " All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down
and worship me ;"^ the one blazing with the holy love of God,
the other reeking with tlie unclean lust of selt-advancement.
And since, as it is written, " God resisteth the proud, but
giveth grace unto the humble,"^ we may say, the one dwelling
in the heaven of heavens, the other cast thence, and raG:incr
through the lower regions of the air ; the one tranquil in tlie
brightness of piety, the other tempest- tossed with beclouding
desires; the one, at God's pleasure, tenderly succouring, justly
avenging, — the other, set on by its own pride, boiling with tlie
lust of subduing and hurting ; the one the minister of God's
goodness to the utmost of their good pleasure, the other held
in by God's power from doing the harm it would ; the former
laughing at the latter when it does good unwillingly by its
persecutions, the latter envying the former when it gathers in
its pilgrims. These two angelic communities, then, dissimilar
and contrary to one another, the one both by nature good and
by will upright, the other also good by nature but by will
depraved, as they are exliibited in other and more explicit
passages of holy writ, so I tliink they are spoken of in this
book of Genesis under the names of light and darkness ; and
even if the author perhaps liad a different meaning, yet our
discussion of the obscure language has not been wasted time ;
for, though we liave been unable to discover his meaning, yet
we have adhered to the rule of faith, which is sufticiently as-
certained by the faithful from other passages of equal authority.
For, though it is the material works of God which are here
spoken of, they have certainly a resemblance to the spiritual,
so that Paul can say, " Ye are all the children of light, and

^ Pa. Lxlviii. 2. 2 ^^j.^t^^ ly 9^ 3 j.^^ [y^ q^

BOOK XL] SCRIPTURE ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 479

the cliildren of the day : we are not of the night, nor of dark-
ness." ^ If, on the other hand, the author of Genesis saw in
the words what we see, then our discussion reaches this more
satisfactory conclusion, that the man of God, so eminently and
divinely wise, or rather, that the Spirit of God who by him
recorded God's works which were finished on the sixth day,
may be supposed not to have omitted all mention of the
angels, whether he included them in the words " in the be-
ginning," because He made them first, or, which seems most
likely, because He made them in the only-begotten Word.
And, under these names heaven and earth, the whole creation
is signified, either as divided into spiritual and material, which
seems the more likely, or into the two great parts of the world
in which all created things are contained, so that, first of all,
the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are enume-
rated according to the mystic number of the days.

34. Of the idea that the angels were meant ivhere the separation of the waters
by the firmament is spoken of, and of that other idea that the waters were
not created.

Some,^ however, have su^^posed that the angelic hosts are
somehow referred to under the name of waters, and that this
is what is meant by, '' Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters :"^ that the waters above should be understood of
the angels, and those below either of the visible waters, or of
the multitude of bad angels, or of the nations of men. If
this be so, then it does not here appear when the angels were
created, but when they were separated. Though there have
not been wanting men foolish and wicked enough* to deny
that the waters were made by God, because it is nowhere
written, " God said. Let there be waters." With equal folly
they might say the same of the earth, for nowhere do we read,
'' God said. Let the earth be." But, say they, it is written,
''In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

1 1 Thess. V. 5.

2 Augustine himself published this idea in his Conf xiii. 32, but afterwards
retracted it, as "said without suflicient consideration" {Retract. II. vi. 2).
Epiphanius and Jerome ascribe it to Origen.

3 Gen. i. 6.

^ Namely, the Audians and Sampsieans, insignificant' heretical sects men-
tioned by Theodoret and Epiphanius.

480 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XI.

Yes, aud there the water is meant, for both are included in
one word. For " the sea is His," as the psalm says, " and
He made it; and His hands formed the dry land."^ But
those who would understand the angels by the waters above
the sides have a difficulty about the specific gravity of the
elements, and fear that the waters, owing to their fluidity and
weight, could not be set in the upper parts of the world. So
that, if they were to construct a man u23on their own prin-
ciples, they would not put in his head any moist humours, or
" pldegm " as the Greeks call it, and which acts the part of
water among the elements of our body. But, in God's handi-
work, the head is the seat of the phlegm, and surely most
fitly ; and yet, according to their supposition, so absurdly
that if we were not aware of the fact, and were informed by
this same record that God had put a moist and cold and
therefore hea\y humour in the uppermost part of man's body,
these world-weighers would refuse belief. Aud if they were
confronted with the authority of Scripture, they would main-
tain that something else must be meant by the words. But,
were we to investii^ate and discover all the details which are
written in this divine book regarding the creation of the
world, we should have much to say, and should widely digress
from the proposed aim of this work. Since, then, we have
now said what seemed needful regarding these two diverse
and contrary communities of angels, in which the origin of
the two human communities (of which we intend to speak
anon) is also found, let us at once bring tliis book also to a
conclusion.

1 Ps. xcv. 5.

BOOK XII.] GOOD AND BAD ANGELS. 481

BOOK TWELFTH.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE FIRST INSTITUTES TWO INQUIRIES REGARDING THE ANGELS ; NAMELY,
WHENCE IS THERE IN SOME A GOOD, AND IN OTHERS AN EVIL WILL ? AND,
WHAT IS THE REASON OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE GOOD, AND THK MISERY
OF THE EVIL? AFTERWARDS HE TREATS OF THE CREATION OF MAN, AND
TEACHES THAT HE IS NOT FROM ETERNITY, BUT WAS CREATED, AND BY
NONE OTHER THAN GOD.

1. That the nature of the angels, both good and had, is one and the same.

IT has already, in the preceding book, been shown how the
two cities originated among the angels. Before I speak
of the creation of man, and show how the cities took their*
rise, so far as regards the race of rational mortals, I see that
I must first, so far as I can, adduce what may demonstrate
that it is not incongruous and unsuitable to speak of a society
composed of angels and men together ; so that there are not
four cities or societies, — two, namely, of angels, and as many I
of men, — but rather two in all, one composed of the good, the
other of the wicked, angels or men indifferently.

That the contrary propensities in good and bad angels have
arisen, not from a difference in their nature and origin, since
God, the good Author and Creator of all essences, created them
both, but from a difference in their wills and desires, it is impos-
sible to doubt. While some stedfastly continued in tliat which
was the common good of all, namely, in God Himself, and in
His eternity, truth, and love ; others, being enamoured rather \
of their own power, as if they could be their own good, lapsed ;
to this private good of their own, from tliat higher and beatific
good which was common to all, and, bartering the lofty dignity
of eternity for the inflation of pride, the most assured verity
for the slyness of vanity, uniting love for factious partisanship,
they became proud, deceived, envious. The cause, therefore,
of the blessedness of the good is adherence to God. And so
the cause of the others' misery will be found in the contrary,

VOL. L 2 n

482 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIL

that is, ill their not adhering to God. Wherefore, if when
the question is asked, why are the former blessed, it is rightly
answered, because they adhere to God; and when it is asked,
why are the latter miserable, it is rightly answered, because
they do not adhere to God, — then there is no other good for
the rational or intellectual creature save God only. Thus,
though it is not every creature that can be blessed (for beasts,
trees, stones, and 'things of that kind have not this capacity),
yet that creature which has the capacity cannot be blessed of
itself, since it is created out of nothing, but only by Him by
whom it has been created. For it is blessed by the possession
of that whose loss makes it miserable. He, then, who is
blessed not in another, but in liimsclf, cannot be miserable,
because he cannot lose himself.

Accordingly w^e say that there is no unchangeable good but
the one, true, blessed God ; that the things which He made are
indeed good because from Him, yet mutable because made not
out of Him, but out of nothing. Although, therefore, they are
not the supreme good, for God is a greater good, yet those
mutable things which can adhere to the immutable good, and
so be blessed, are very good ; for so completely is He their
good, that without Him they cannot but be wretched. And
the other created things in the universe are not better on this
account, that they cannot be miserable. For no one would
say that the other members of the body are superior to the
eyes, because they cannot be blind. But as the sentient
nature, even when it feels pain, is superior to the stony, which
can feel none, so the rational nature, even when wretched, is
more excellent tlian that which lacks reason or feeling, and
can therefore experience no misery. And since this is so,
then in this nature wliich lias been created so excellent, that
though it be mutable itself, it can yet secure its blessedness
by adliering to the immutable good, the supreme God ; and
since it is not satisfied unless it be perfectly blessed, and
cannot be thus blessed save in God, — in this nature, I say,
not to adhere to God, is manifestly a fault.* Now every fault
injures the nature, and is consequently contrary to the nature.
The creature, therefore, which cleaves to God, differs from

' yUiuni: pciliaps "fault" most nearly embraces all tlie uses of this word.

BOOK XII.] OF THE ANGELS. 483

those who do not, not by nature, but by fault ; and yet by
this very fault the nature itself is proved to be very noble
and admirable. For that nature is certainly praised, the fault
of which is justly blamed. For we justly blame the fault
because it mars the praiseworthy nature. As, then, when we
say that blindness is a defect of the eyes, we prove that sight
belongs to the nature of the eyes ; and when we say that
deafness is a defect of the ears, hearing is thereby proved to
belong to their nature ; — so, when we say that it is a fault of
the angelic creature that it does not cleave to God, we hereby
most plainly declare that it pertained to its nature to cleave
to God. And who can worthily conceive or express how
great a glory that is, to cleave to God, so as to live to Him,
to draw wisdom from Him, to delight in Him, and to enjoy
this so great good, without death, error, or grief ? And thus,
since every vice is an injury of the nature, that very vice of
the wicked angels, their departure from God, is sufficient proof
that God created their nature so good, that it is an injury to
it not to be with God.

2. Tliat there is no entity^ contrary to the divine, because nonentity seems to he
that which is wholly opposite to Him who supremtly and cdways is.

This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing,
when we speak of the apostate angels, that they could have
another nature, derived, as it were, from some different orig^in,
and not from God. From the great impiety of this error we
shall disentangle ourselves the more readily and easily, the
more distinctly we understand that which God spoke by the
angel when He sent Moses to the cliildren of Israel : " I am
that I am."^ For since God is the supreme existence, that is
to say, supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things
that He made He empowered to be, but not to be supremely
like Himself. To some He communicated a more ample, to
others a more limited existence, and thus arranged the natures
of beings in ranks. For as from sapere comes sapientia, so
from esse comes essentia, — a new word indeed, which the old
Latin writers did not use, but which is naturalized in our
day,^ that our language may not want an equivalent for the
Greek oiaLa. For this is expressed word for word by essentia.
' Essentia. * Ex. iii. 14. 3 Quintilian calls it dura.

484 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

Consequently, to that nature -vvliicli supremely is, and which
created all else that exists, no nature is contrary save that
which does not exist. For nonentity is the contrary of that
which is. And thus there is no being contrary to God, the
Supreme Being, and Author of all beings whatsoever.

3. That the enemies oj God are so, not by nature hut by will, ichich, as it injures
tliem, injures a good nature; for if vice does not injure, it is not vice.

In Scripture they are called God's enemies who oppose His
rule, not by nature, but by vice ; having no power to hurt
Ilim, but only themselves. For they are His enemies, not
through their power- to hurt, but by their will to oppose Him.
For God is unchangeable, and wholly proof against injury.
Therefore the vice which makes those who are called His
enemies resist Him, is an evil not to God, but to themselves.
And to them it is an evil, solely because it corrupts the good
of their nature. It is not nature, therefore, but vice, which is
contrary to God. For that which is evil is contrary to the
good. And who will deny that God is the supreme good ?
Vice, therefore, is contrary to God, as evil to good. Further,
the nature it vitiates is a good, and therefore to this good
also it is contrary. But while it is contrary to God only as
evil to good, it is contrary to the nature it vitiates, both as
evil and as hurtful. For to God no evils are hurtful ; but
only to natures mutable and corruptible, though, by the testi-
mony of the vices themselves, originally good. For w^ere they
not good, vices could not hurt them. For how do they hurt
them but by depriving them of integrity, beauty, welfare,
virtue, and, 'in short, whatever natural good vice is wont to
diminish or destroy ? But if there be no good to take away,
then no injury can be done, and consequently there can be no
vice. For it is impossible that there should be a harmless
vice. Whence we gather, that though vice cannot injure the
unchangeable good, it can injure nothing but good ; because
it does not exist where it does not injure. This, then, may
be thus formulated : Vice cannot be in the highest good, and
cannot be but in some good. Things solely good, therefore,
can in some circumstances exist ; things solely evil, never ; for
even those natures which are vitiated by an evil will, so far
indeed as they are vitiated, are evil, but in so far as they

BOOK XIL] every CREATED NATURE GOOD. 485

are natures they are good. And when a vitiated nature is
punished, besides the good it has in being a nature, it has
this also, that it is not unpunished.^ For this is just, and
certainly everything just is a good. For no one is punished
for natural, but for voluntary vices. For even the vice which
by the force of habit and long continuance has become a
second nature, had its origin in the will For at present we
are speaking of the vices of the nature, which has a mental
capacity for that enlightenment w^hich discriminates between
what is just and what is nnjust.

4. Of the nature of irrational and lifeless creatures, which in their own kind
and order do not mar the beauty of the universe.

But it is ridiculous to condemn the faults of beasts and
trees, and other such mortal and mutable things as are void of
intelligence, sensation, or life, even though these faults should
destroy their corruptible nature ; for these creatures received,
at their Creator's will, an existence fitting them, by passing
away and giving place to others, to secure that lowest form of
beauty, the beauty of seasons, which in its own place is a
requisite part of this world. For things earthly were neither
to be made equal to things heavenly, nor were they, though
inferior, to be quite omitted from the universe. Since, then,
in those situations where such things are appropriate, some
perish to make way for others that are born in their room,
and the less succumb to the greater, and the things that are
overcome are transformed into the quality of those that have
the mastery, this is the appointed order of things transitory.
Of this order the beauty does not strike us, because by our
mortal frailty we are so involved in a part of it, that we can-
not perceive the whole, in which these fragments that offend
us are harmonized with the most accurate fitness and beauty.
And therefore, where we are not so well able to perceive the
wisdom of the Creator, we are very properly enjoined to believe
it, lest in the vanity of human rashness we presume to find
any fault with the work of so great an Artificer. At the same
time, if we attentively consider even these faults of earthly

^ With this may he compared the argriment of Socrates in the Oorfias, in
which it is shown that to escape punishment is worse than to suller it, and that
the greatest of evils is to do wronji and not be chastised.

486 THE CITY OF GOD. [nOOK XII.

things, Avliicli are neither voluntary nor penal, they seem to
illustrate the excellence of the natures themselves, "svliich are
all originated and created by God ; for it is that wliich pleases
us in this nature which we are displeased to see removed by
the fault, — unless even the natures themselves displease men,
as often happens when they become hurtful to them, and then
men estimate them not by their nature, but by their utility ;
as in the case of those animals whose swarms scourged the
pride of the Egyptians. But in this way of estimating, they
may find fault with the sun itself; for certain criminals or
debtors are sentenced by the judges to be set in the sun.
Therefore it is not with respect to our convenience or discom-
fort, but ^vith respect to their own nature, that the creatures
are glorifying to their Artificer. Thus even the nature of the
eternal fire, penal though it be to the condemned sinners, is
most assuredly worthy of praise. For what is more beautiful
than fire flaming, blazing, and shining ? What more useful
than fire for warmincj, restorinc^, cooldnjT, thoui^h nothincr is
more destructive than fire burnin}:j and consuminji ? The same
thing, then, when applied in one way, is destructive, but when
applied suitably, is most beneficial. For who can find words
to tell its uses throughout the whole world ? We must
not listen, then, to those who praise the light of fire but find
fault with its heat, judging it not by its nature, but by their
convenience or discomfort. For they wish to see, but not
to be burnt. But they forget that this very light which is so
pleasant to them, disagrees with and hurts weak eyes ; and
in that heat which is disaOTeeable to them, some animals
iind the most suitable conditions of a healthy life.

5. TJidt in all natures, of ever;/ k'nuf and ran!:, God w glorified.

All natures, then, inasmuch as they are, and have therefore
a rank and species of their own, and a kind of internal har-
mony, are certainly good. And when they are in the places
assigned to them l»y the order of their nature, they preser^^e
such being as tliey have received. And those things M'hich
have not received everlasting being, are altered for better or
for worse, so as to suit the wants and motions of those things
tu which the Creator's law has made them subservient ; and

BOOK XII.] ORIGIN OF EVIL. 487

thus they tend in the divine providence to that end which is
embraced in the general scheme of the government of the
universe. So that, though the corruption of transitory and
perishable things brings them to utter destruction, it does not
prevent their producing that which was designed to be their
result. And this being so, God, who supremely is, and who
therefore created every being which has not supreme existence
(for that which was made of nothing could not be equal to
Him, and indeed could not be at all had He not made it), is
not to be found fault with on account of the creature's faults,
but is to be praised in view of the natures He has made.

6. Mliat the cause of the blessedness of the good angels is, and what the
cause of the misery of the wicked.

Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels
is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely
is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it
occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable
because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have
turned to themselves who have no such essence. And this
vice, what else is it called than pride ? For " pride is the
beginning of sin." ^ They were unw^illing, then, to preserve
their strength for God ; and as adherence to God was the
condition of their enjoying an ampler being, they diminished
it by preferring themselves to Him. This was the first defect,
and the first impoverishment, and the first flaw^ of their nature,
which was created, not indeed supremely existent, but finding
its blessedness in the enjoyment of the Supreme Being ; whilst
by abandoning Him it should become, not indeed no nature
at all, but a nature with a less ample existence, and therefore
wretched.

If the further question be asked. What was the efficient
cause of their evil will ? there is none. For what is it which
makes the will bad, when it is the will itself wliich makes the
action bad ? And consequently the bad will is the cause of
the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the bad
will. For if anything is the cause, this tiling either has or
has not a will. If it has, the will is either good or bad. If
good, who is so left to himself as to say that a good will

^ Eccles. X. 13.

^

488 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

makes a will bad ? For in this case a good will would be
the cause of sin ; a most absurd supposition. On the other
hand, if this hypothetical thing has a bad will, I wish to know
what made it so ; and that we may not go on for ever, I ask
at once, what made the first evil will bad ? For that is not
the first which w^as itself corrupted by an evil will, but that
, is the first which was made evil by no other will. For if it
were preceded by that which made it evil, that will was first
which made the other evil. But if it is replied, " Nothing
made it evil ; it always was evil," I ask if it has been exist-
ing in some nature. For if not, then it did not exist at all ;
and if it did exist in some nature, then it vitiated and cor-
rupted it, and injured it, and consequently deprived it of good.
And therefore the evil will could not exist in an evil nature,
but in a nature at once good and mutable, which this vice
could injure. For if it did no injury, it was no vice; and con-
sequently the will in which it was, could not be called evil.
But if it did injury, it did it by taking away or diminishing
good. And therefore there could not be from eternity, as was
suggested, an evil w^ill in that thing in which there had been
previously a natural good, which the evil will w\as able to
diminish by corrupting it. If, then, it w^as not from eternity,
who, I ask, made it ? The only thing that can be suggested
in reply is, that something w^hich itself had no will, made the
will evil. I ask, then, whether this thing was superior, in-
ferior, or equal to it ? If superior, then it is better. How,
then, has it no w^ill, and not rather a good wiU ? The same
reasoning applies if it was equal ; for so long as two things
have equally a good w^ill, the one cannot produce in the other
an evil will. Then remains the supposition that that which
corrupted the will of the angelic nature which first sinned,
was itself an inferior thing without a will. But that thing,
be it of the lowest and most earthly kind, is certainly itself
good, since it is a nature and being, with a form and rank of
its own in its own kind and order. How, then, can a good
thing be the efficient cause of an evil will ? How, I say, can
good be the cause of evil ? For when the will abandons what
is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil —
not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the

BOOK XII.] EVIL DUE TO THE WILL. 489

turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is not an inferior thing
which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become
so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior thing.
For if two men, alike in physical and moral constitution, see
the same corporal beauty, and one of them is excited by the
sight to desire an illicit enjoyment, while the other stedfastly
maintains a modest restraint of his will, what do we suppose
brings it about, that there is an evil will in the one and not
in the other ? What produces it in the man in whom it
exists ? ISTot the bodily beauty, for that was presented equally
to the gaze of both, and yet did not produce in both an evil
wilL Did the flesh of the one cause the desire as he looked ?
But why did not the flesh of the other ? Or was it the dis-
position ? But why not the disposition of both ? For we
are supposing that both were of a like temperament of body
and soul. IMust we, then, say that the one was tempted by a
secret suggestion of the evil spiiit ? As if it was not by his
own will that he consented to this suggestion and to any in-
ducement whatever ! This consent, then, this evil will which
he presented to the evil suasive influence, — what was the
cause of it, we ask ? For, not to delay on such a difficulty
as this, if both are tempted equally, and one yields and con-
sents to the temptation, while the other remains unmoved by
it, what other account can we give of the matter than this,
that the one is willing, the other unwilling, to fall away from
chastity ? And what causes this but their own wills, in cases
at least such as we are supposing, where the temperament
is identical ? The same beauty was equally obvious to the
eyes of both; the same secret temptation pressed on both
with equal violence. However minutely we examine the case,
therefore, we can discern nothing which caused the will of the
one to be evil. For if we say that the man himself made his
mil evil, what was the man himself before his will was evil
but a good nature created by God, the unchangeable good ?
Here are two men who, before the temptation, were alike in
body and soul, and of whom one yielded to the tempter who
persuaded him, while the other could not be persuaded to
desire that lovely body which was equally before the eyes of
both. Shall we say of the successfully tempted man that he

490 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIT.

corrupted his own will, since lie was certainly good before
his will became bad ? Then, why did he do so ? Was it
because his will was a nature, or because it was made of
nothing ? We shall find that the latter is the case. For if
a nature is the cause of an evil will, what else can we say
than that evil arises from good, or that good is the cause of
evil ? And how can it come to pass that a nature, good though .
mutable, should produce any evil — that is to say, should make
the will itself wicked ?

7. That we ought not to expect to find any efficient cause of the evil icill.

Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil
will ; for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is
not an effecting of something, but a defect. For defection
from that which supremely is, to that which has less of being,
— this is to begin to have an evil will. Now, to seek to
discover the causes of these defections, — causes, as I have
said, not efficient, but deficient, — is as if some one sought to
see darkness, or hear silence. Yet both of these are known
by us, and the former by means only of the eye, the latter
only by the ear ; but not by their positive actuality,^ but by
their want of it. Let no one, then, seek to know from me
w^hat I know that I do not know ; unless he perhaps wishes
to learn to be ignorant of that of which all we know is, that
it cannot be known. For those things which are kno^vn not
by their actuality, but by their want of it, are known, if our
expression may be allowed and understood, by not knowing
them, that by knowing them they may be not known. For
when the eyesight surveys objects that strike the sense, it
nowhere sees darkness but where it begins not to sea And
so no other sense but the ear can perceive silence, and yet it
is only perceived by not hearing. Thus, too, our mind per-
ceives intelligil)le forms by understanding them; but when
they are deficient, it knows them by nof knowing them ; for
" who can understand defects ?"^

8. Of the misdirected love xchcrehy the trill fell away from the immutahle

to tJie mutable good.

This I do know, that the nature of God can never, no-

^ Sitccie. ^ V6. .\ix. 12.

BOOK XII.] FALL OF THE ANGELS. 491

where, nowise be defective, and that natures made of nothing
can. These latter, however, the more being they have, and
the more good they do (for then they do something positive),
the more they have efficient causes ; but in so far as they are
defective in being, and consequently do evil (for then what is
their work but vanity ?), they have deficient causes. And I
know likewise, that the will could not become evil, were it
unwilling to become so ; and therefore its failings are justly
punished, being not necessary, but voluntary. For its defec-
tions are not to evil things, but are themselves evil; that is
to say, are not towards things that are naturally and in them-
selves evil, but the defection of the will is evil, because it is
contrary to the order of nature, and an abandonment of that
which has supreme being for that which has less. For avarice
is not a fault inherent in gold, but in the man who inordi-
nately loves gold, to the detriment of justice, which ought to
be held in incomparably higher regard than gold. Neither is
luxury the fault of lovely and charming objects, but of the
heart that inordinately loves sensual pleasures, to the neglect
of temperance, which attaches us to objects more lovely in
their spirituality, and more delectable by their incorruptibility.
Nor yet is boasting the fault of human praise, but of the soul
that is inordinately fond of the applause of men, and that
makes light of the voice of conscience. Pride, too, is not the
fault of him who delegates power, nor of power itself, but of
the soul that is inordinately enamoured of its own power, and
despises the more just dominion of a higher authority. Con-
sequently he who inordinately loves the good which any
nature possesses, even though he obtain it, himself becomes
evil in the good, and wretched because deprived of a greater
good.

9. Whether the angels, besides receiving from God their nature, received from
Him also their good will by the Holy Spirit imbuing them tvith love.

There is, then, no natural efficient cause, or, if I may be
allowed the expression, no essential cause, of the evil will,
since itself is the origin of evil in mutable spirits, by which
the good of their nature is diminished and corrupted ; and
the will is made evil by nothing else than defection from
God, — a defection of which the cause, too, is certainly de-

492 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK XII.

ficient. But as to tlie good will, if we should say that there
is no elTicient cause of it, we must beware of giving currency
to the opinion that the good will of the good angels is not
created, but is co-eternal with God. For if they themselves
are created, how can we say that their good will was eternal ?
But if created, was it created along with themselves, or did
they exist for a time without it ? If along with themselves,
then doubtless it was created by Him who created them, and,
as soon as ever they were created, they attached themselves
to Him who created them, with the love He created in them.
And they are separated from the society of the rest, because
they have continued in the same good will ; while the others
have fallen away to another will, which is an evil one, by the
very fact of its being a falling away from the good ; from
which, we may add, they w^ould not have fallen away had
they been unwilling to do so. But if the good angels existed
for a time without a good will, and produced it in themselves
without God's interference, then it follows that they made
themselves better than He made them. Away with such a
thought ! For without a good will, what were they but evil ?
Or if they were not evil, because they had not an evil will
any more than a good one (for they had not fallen away from
that which as yet they had not begun to enjoy), certainly they
were not the same, not so good, as wdien they came to have
a good will Or if they could not make themselves better
than they were made by Him who is surpassed by none in
His work, then certainly, without His helpful operation,
they could not come to possess that good will which made
them better. And though their good will effected that they
did not turn to themselves, wdio had a more stinted existence,
but to Him who supremely is, and that, being united to Him,
their own being was enlarged, and they lived a wise and
blessed life by His communications to them, what does this
])r()ve but that tlie will, however good it might be, would
luive continued helplessly only to desire Him, had not He
who had made their nature out of nothing, and yet capable of
enjoying Him, lirst stinudated it to desire Him, and then
filled it with Himself, and so made it better ?

Besides, this too has to be inquired into, whether, if the

BOOK XIL] UNFALLEN ANGELS, HOW UPHELD. 493

good angels made their own will good, they did so with or
without will ? If without, then it w^as not their doing. I f
with, was the will good or bad ? If bad, how could a bad
will give birth to a good one ? If good, then already they had
a good will. And who made this will, which already they
had, but He who created them with a good will, or with that
chaste love by which they cleaved to Him, in one and the
same act creating their nature, and endowing it with grace ?
And thus we are driven to believe that the holy angels never
existed without a good will or the love of God. But the
angels who, though created good, are yet evil now, became so
by their own will. And this will was not made evil by their
good nature, unless by its voluntary defection from good ;
for good is not the cause of evil, but a defection from good
is. These angels, therefore, either received less of the grace
of the divine love than those w^ho persevered in the same ; or
if both were created equally good, then, while the one fell by
their evil will, the others were more abundantly assisted, and
attained to that pitch of blessedness at which they became
certain they should never fall from it, — as we have already
shown in the preceding book.^ We must therefore acknow-
ledge, with the praise due to the Creator, that not only of
holy men, but also of the holy angels, it can be said that
" the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto them."^ And that not only of
men, but primarily and principally of angels it is true, as it
is written, "It is good to draw near to God."^ And those
who have this good in common, have, both with Him to
whom they draw near, and with one another, a holy fellow-
ship, and form one city of God — His living sacrifice, and His
living temple. And I see that, as I have now spoken of the
rise ot this city among the angels, it is time to speak of the
origin of that part of it which is hereafter to be united to the
immortal angels, and which at present is being gathered from
among mortal men, and is either sojourning on earth, or, in
the persons of those who have passed through death, is resting
in the secret receptacles and abodes of disembodied spirits.
For from one man, whom God created as the first, the whole

1 C. 13. ' Rom. V. 5. 3 pg. ixxiii. 28.

494 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

human race descended, according to the faith of Holy Scrip-
ture, which deservedly is ot wonderful authority among all
nations throughout the world ; since, among its other true
statements, it predicted, by its divine foresight, that all nations
would give credit to it.

10. Of the JaUenoiS oj the history which allots many thousand years to the
world's past.

Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not
what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of
the human race. For some hold the same opinion regarding
men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they have
always been. Thus Apuleius says when he is describing our
race, " Individually they are mortal, but collectively, and as
a race, they are immortal"^ And when they are asked, how,
if the human race has always been, they vindicate the truth
of their history, which narrates who were the inventors, and
what they invented, and who first instituted the liberal studies
and the other arts, and who first inhabited this or that region,
and this or that island ? they reply,'' that most, if not all
lands, were so desolated at intervals by fire and flood, that
men were greatly reduced in numbers, and from these, again,
the population was restored to its former numbers, and that
thus there was at intervals a new beginning made, and though
those things which had been interrupted and checked by the
severe devastations were only renewed, yet they seemed to be
originated then ; but that man could not exist at all save as
produced by man. But they say what they think, not what
they know.

They are deceived, too, l)y those highly mendacious docu-
ments which profess to give the history of many thousand
years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find tliat
not 6000 years have yet passed.^ And, not to spend many
words in exposing the baselessness of these documents, in

* Dc Deo Socratis.

' Au;^istine no duuht n-ffrs to the interesting accoimt given by Critias, near
the beginning of the Tinidus, of the conversation of Soh)n with the Egyptian
priests.

" Angustine here follows the chronology of Kusfbius, who reckons fiGll years
fromtlie Creation to the taking ol Kome by the Goths; adopting the Septuagiut
version ol the patriarchal ages.

BOOK XII.] ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 495

which so many thousands of years are accounted for, nor
in proving that their authorities are totally inadequate, let
me cite only tliat letter which Alexander the Great wrote to
his mother Olympias,^ giving her the narrative he had from
an Egyptian priest, which he had extracted from their sacred
archives, and which gave an account of kingdoms mentioned
also by the Greek historians. In this letter of Alexander's a
term of upwards of 5000 years is assigned to the kingdom of
Assyria ; while in the Greek history only 1300 years are
reckoned from the reign of Bel himself, whom both Greek
and Egyptian agree in counting the first king of Assyria.
Then to the empire of the Persians and Macedonians this
Egyptian assigned more than 8000 years, counting to the
time of Alexander, to whom he was speaking ; while among
the Greeks, 485 years are assigned to the Macedonians down
to the death of Alexander, and to the Persians 233 years,
reckoning to the termination of his conquests. Thus these
give a much smaller number of years than the Egyptians ;
and indeed, though multiplied three times, the Greek chrono-
logy would still be shorter. For the Egyptians are said to
have formerly reckoned only four months to their year ;^ so
that one year, according to the fuller and truer computation
now in use among them as well as among ourselves, would
comprehend three of their old years. But not even thus, as I
said, does the Greek history correspond with the Egyptian in
its chronology. And therefore the former must receive the
greater credit, because it does not exceed the true account of
the duration of the world as it is given by our documents,
which are truly sacred. Further, if this letter of Alexander,
which has become so famous, differs widely in this matter of
chronology from the probable credible account, how much
less can we believe these documents which, though full of
fabulous and fictitious antiquities, they would fain oppose to
the authority of our well-known and divine books, which pre-

1 See above, viii. 5.

2 It is not apparent to what Angustine refers. The Arcadians, according
to Macrobius {Saturn, i. 7), divided their year into three months, and the
Egyptians divided theirs into three seasons : each of these seasons having four
months, it is possible that Augustine may have referred to this. See Wilkin-
son's excursus on the Egyptian year, in Ilawliuson's Herod. Book ii.

496 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

dieted that the whole world would believe them, and which
the whole world accordingly has believed ; wluch proved, too,
that it had truly narrated past events by its prediction of
future events, which have so exactly come to pass !

11. Of those who suppose that this world indeed is not eternal, but that eithrr
there are numberless worlds, or that one and the same world is perpetually
resolved into its elements, and renewed at the conclusion of fixed cycles.

There are some, again, who, though they do not suppose
that this world is eternal, are of opinion either that this is
not the only world, but that there are numberless worlds, or
that indeed it is the only one, but that it dies, and is born
a^ain at fixed intervals, and this times without number ; ^ but
they must aclmowledge that the human race existed before
there were other men to beget them. For they cannot sup-
pose that, if the whole world perish, some men would be left
alive in the world, as they might survive in floods and con-
flagrations, which those other speculators suppose to be partial,
and from which they can therefore reasonably argue that a
few men survived whose posterity would renew the popula-
tion ; but as they believe that the world itseK is renewed out
of its own material, so they must believe that out of its elements
the human race was produced, and then that the progeny of
mortals sprang like that of other animals from their parents.

12. How these persons are to he answered, who find fault with the creation of
man on the score of its recent date.

As to those who are always askhig wliy man was not
created during these countless ages of the infinitely extended
past, and came into being so lately that, according to Scripture,
less than 6000 years have elapsed since he began to be, I
would reply to them regarding the creation of man, just as I
replied regarding the origin of the world to those who will
not believe that it is not eternal, but had a beginning, which
even Plato himself most plainly declares, though some think
his statement was not consistent with his real opinion.^ If it

^ The former opinion was held by Democritus ami his disciple Epicurns ; the
hitter by Heraclitus, wlio supposed that "God amused Himself" by tlms re-
newing worlds.

2 The Ahxandrian Neo-Platonists endeavouied in this way to escape from
the obvious meaning of the Tinuxus.

BOOK XII.] WHY MAX WAS NOT CREATED SOONER. 497

offends them that the time that has elapsed since the creation
of man is so short, and his years so few according to our
authorities, let them take this into consideration, that nothinjj
that has a limit is lono^, and that all the a^^es of time being
finite, are very little, or indeed nothing at all, when compared
to the interminable eternity. Consequently, if there had
elapsed since the creation of man, I do not say five or six, but
even sixty or six hundred thousand years, or sixty times as
many, or six hundred or six hundred thousand times as many,
or this sum multiplied until it could no longer be expressed
in numbers, the same question could still be put. Why was
he not made before ? For the past and boundless eternity
during which God abstained from creating man is so great,
that, compare it with what vast and untold number of ages
you please, so long as there is a definite conclusion of this
term of time, it is not even as if you compared the minutest
drop of water with the ocean that ever}^vhere flows around
the globe. For of these two, one indeed is very small, the
other incomparably vast, yet both are finite ; but that space of
time which starts from some beginning, and is limited by some
termination, be it of what extent it may, if you compare
it with that which has no beginning, I know not whether to
say we should count it the very minutest thing, or nothing at
all. For, take this limited time, and deduct from the end of it,
one by one, the briefest moments (as you might take day by day
from a man's life, beginning at the day in which he now lives,
back to that of his birth), and though the number of moments
you must subtract in this backward movement be so great
that no word can express it, yet this subtraction will some
time carry you to the beginning. But if you take away from
a time which has no beginning, I do not say brief moments
one by one, nor yet hours, or days, or months, or years even
in quantities, but terms of years so vast that they cannot be
named by the most skilful arithmetician, — take away terms of
years as vast as that which we have supposed to be gradually
consumed by the deduction of moments, — and take them away
not once and again repeatedly, but always, and what do you
effect, what do you make by your deduction, since you never
reach the beginning which has no existence ? Wherefore, that
VOL. L . 2 1

498 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII

which we now demand after five thousand odd years, oui
descendants might with like curiosity demand after six hun-
dred thousand years, supposing these dying generations of men
continue so long to decay and be renewed, and supposing pos-
terity continues as weak and ignorant as ourselves. The same
question might have been asked by those who have lived before
us, and while man was even newer upon earth. The first man
himself, in short, might, the day after, or the very day of his
creation, have asked why he was created no sooner. And no
matter at what earlier or later period he had been created, this
controversy about the commencement of this world's history
would have had precisely the same difficulties as it has now.

13. Of the revolution of the ages, which some philosophers believe will bring all
things round again, after a certain fixed cycky to the same order and
form as at first.

This controversy some philosophers have seen no other
approved means of solving than by introducing cycles of time,
in which there should be a constant renewal and repetition of
the order of nature ; ^ and they have therefore asserted that
these cycles will ceaselessly recur, one passing away and another
coming, though they are not agreed as to whether one per-
manent world shall pass through all these cycles, or whether
the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and be renewed so
as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena — the things
which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding. And
from tliis fantastic vicissitude tliey exempt not even the im-
mortal soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a cease-
less transmigration between delusive blessedness and real
misery. For how can that be truly called blessed which has
no assurance of being so eternally, and is either in ignorance
of the truth, and blind to the misery that is approaching, or,
knowing it, is in misery and fear ? Or if it passes to bliss,
and leaves miseries for ever, then tliere liappens in time a
new tiling which time shall not end. Wliy not, then, the
world also ? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing ?
So that, by following the straight path of sound doctrine, we

' Antoniims says (ii. 14), "All things from eternity arc of like forms, and
come round in a circle." Cf. also ix. 28, and the rcfereuces to more aucieut
philosopliical writers in Gatikcr's notes on these passages.

BOOK XII.] TIIEOEY OF RECURRING CYCLES. 499

escape, I know not what circuitous paths, discovered by de-
ceiving and deceived sages.

Some, too, in advocating these recurring cycles tliat restore
all things to their original, cite in favour of their supposition
what Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes : " What is that
which hath been ? It is that which shall be. And what is
that which is done ? It is that which shall be done : and
there is no new thing under the sun. Who can speak and
say, See, this is new ? It hath been already of old time, which
was before us." ^ This he said either of those things of which he
had just been speaking — the succession of generations, the orbit
of tlie sun, the course of rivers, — or else of all kinds of creatures
that are born and die. For men were before us, are with us,
and shall be after us ; and so all living things and all plants.
Even monstrous and irregular productions, though differing
from one another, and though some are reported as solitary
instances, yet resemble one another generally, in so far as they
are miraculous and monstrous, and, in this sense, have been,
and shall be, and are no new and recent things under the
sun. However, some would understand these words as mean-
ing that in the predestination of God all things have already
existed, and that thus there is no new thing under the sun.
At all events, far be it from any true believer to suppose
that by these words of Solomon those cycles are meant, in
which, according to those philosophers, the same periods
and events of time are repeated; as if, for example, the
philosopher Plato, having taught in the school at Athens
which is called the Academy, so, numberless ages before,
at long but certain intervals, this same Plato, and the same
school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be
repeated during the countless cycles that are yet be be, — far
be it, I say, from us to believe this. For once Christ died
for our sins ; and, rising from the dead. He dieth no more.
" Death hath no more dominion over Him ;"^ and we ourselves
after the resurrection shall be "ever with the Lord,"^ to wliom
we now say, as the sacred Psalmist dictates, " Thou shalt keep
us, 0 Lord, Thou shalt preserve us from this generation.'"*

^ Eccles. i. 9, 10. So Origen, de Prin. iii, 5, and ii. 3.

2 Rom. vi. 9. 3 1 xhess. iv. 16. ^ Vs. xii. 7.

500 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

And that too which follows, is, I think, appropriate enough :
" The wicked walk in a circle ; " not because their life is to
recur by means of these circles, which these philosophers
imagine, but because the path in which their false doctrine
now runs is circuitous.

14, Of the creation of the human race in time, and how this was effected
without any new design or change of purpose on God's part.

What wonder is it if, entangled in these circles, they find
neither entrance nor egress ? For they know not how the
human race, and tliis mortal condition of ours, took its origin,
nor how it will be brought to an end, since they cannot
penetrate the inscrutable wisdom of God. For, thougli Himself
eternal, and witliout beginning, yet He caused time to have a
beginning ; and man, whom He had not previously made, He
made in time, not from a new and sudden resolution, but by
His unchangeable and eternal design. Who can search out
the unsearchable depth of this purpose, who can scrutinize the
inscrutable wisdom, wherewith God, without change of will,
created man, who had never before been, and gave him an
existence in time, and increased the human race from one
individual ? For the Psalmist himself, when he had first
said, " Thou shalt keep us, 0 Lord, Thou shalt preserve us
from this generation for ever," and had then rebuked those
whose foolish and impious doctrine preserves for the soul no
eternal deliverance and blessedness, adds immediately, "The
wicked walk in a circle." Tlien, as if it were said to him,
" What tlien do you believe, feel, know ? Are w^e to believe
that it suddenly occurred to God to create man, whom He
had never before made in a past eternity, — God, to whom
notliing new can occur, and in whom is no changeableness ? "
the I'salmist goes on to reply, as if addressing God Himself,
" According to the depth of Thy wisdom Thou hast multiplied
the cliildren of men." Let men, he seems to say, fancy what
they please, let tliem conjecture and dispute as seems good to
them, but Thou hast multiplied the children of men according
to the depth of thy wisdom, wliich no man can comprehend.
For this is a depth indeed, that God always lias been, and that
man, whom He had never made before, He willed to make in
time, and tins without changing His design and will.

BOOK XIL] TTAD god ALWAYS CREATURES ? 501

15. Whether we are to believe that God, as He has alioays been sovereign Lord,
has always had creatures over lohom He exercised His sovereignty ; and
in what sense we can say that the creature has always been, and yet cannot
say it is co-eternal.

For my own part, indeed, as I dare not say that there ever
was a time when the Lord God was not Lord/ so I ought not
to doubt that man had no existence before time, and was first
created in time. But when I consider what God could be the
Lord of, if there was not always some creature, I shrink from
making any assertion, remembering my own insignificance, and
that it is written, "What man is he that can know the
counsel of God ? or who can think what the will of the Lord
is ? For the thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our
devices are but uncertain. For the corruptible body presseth
down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the
mind that museth upon many things." ^ Many things certainly
do I muse upon in this earthly tabernacle, because the one thing
which is true among the many, or beyond the many, I cannot
find. If, then, among these many thoughts, I say that there
have always been creatures for Him to be Lord of, who is
always and ever has been Lord, but that these creatures have
not always been the same, but succeeded one another (for we
would not seem to say that any is co-eternal with the Creator,
an assertion condemned equally by faith and sound reason), I
must take care lest I fall into the absurd and ignorant error
of maintaining that by these successions and changes mortal
creatures have always existed, whereas the immortal creatures
had not begun to exist until the date of our own world, when
the angels were created ; if at least the angels are intended
by that light which was first made, or, rather, by that heaven
of which it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth." ^ The angels at least did not exist before
they were created; for if we say that they have always
existed, we shall seem to make them co-eternal with the
Creator. Again, if I say that the angels were not created in
time, but existed before all times, as those over whom God,
who has ever been Sovereign, exercised His sovereignty, then
I shall be asked whether, if they were created before all time,

1 Cf. de Trin. v. 17. ^ Wisdom ix. 13-15. 3 Qcn. i. 1.

502 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIT.

they, being creatures, could possibly always exist. It may
perhaps be replied. Why not alicays, since that which is in
all time may very properly be said to be " always ? " Now,
so true is it that these angels have existed in all time, tliat
even before time was, they were created ; if at least time
began with the heavens, and the angels existed before the
heavens. And if time was even before the heavenly bodies, not
indeed marked by hours, days, months, and years, — for these
measures of time's periods which are commonly and properly
called times, did manifestly begin with the motion of the
heavenly bodies, and so God said, wdien He appointed them,
" Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for
years," ^ — if, I say, time was before these heavenly bodies by some
changing movement, whose parts succeeded one another and
could not exist simultaneously, and if there was some such
movement among the angels which necessitated the existence
of time, and that they from their very creation should be sub-
ject to these temporal changes, then they have existed in all
time, for time came into being along with them. And whu
will say that what was in all time, was not always ?

But if I make such a reply, it will be said to me, How, then,
are they not co-eternal with the Creator, if He and they
always have been ? How even can they be said to have
been created, if we are to understand that they have always
existed ? What shall we reply to this ? Shall we say that
both statements are true ? that they always have been, since
they have been in all time, they being created along with
time, or time along with them, and yet that also they were
created ? For, similarly, w^e will not deny that time itself
was created, though no one doubts that time has been in all
time ; for if it has not been in all time, then there was a time
when there was no time. But the most foolish person could
not make such an assertion. For we can reasonably say
there was a time when Kome was not; there was a time
when Jerusalem was not ; there was a time when Abraham
was not ; there was a time when man was not, and so on :
in fine, if the world was not made at the commencement
of time, but after some time had elapsed, we can say there

1 (Jen. i. 11.

BOOK XII.] ETERNITY AND TIME. 503

was a time wlien the world was not. But to say there
was a time when time was not, is as absurd as to say
there was a man when there was no man ; or, this world was
when this world was not. For if we are not referring to
the same object, the form of expression may be used, as, there
was another man when this man was not. Thus we can
reasonably say there was another time when this time was
not; but not the merest simpleton could say there was a
time when there was no time. As, then, we say that time
was created, though we also say that it always has been,
since in all time time has been, so it does not follow that if
the angels have always been, they were therefore not created.
For we say that they have always been, because they have
been in all time ; and we say they have been in all time,
because time itself could no wise be without them. For
where there is no creature whose changing movements admit
of succession, there cannot be time at all. And consequently,
even if they have always existed, they were created ; neither,
if they have always existed, are they therefore co-eternal with
the Creator. For He has always existed in unchangeable
eternity ; while they were created, and are said to have been
always, because they have been in all time, time being impos-
sible without the creature. But time passing away by its
changefulness, cannot be co-eternal with changeless eternity.
And consequently, though the immortality of the angels does
not pass in time, does not become past as if now it were not,
nor has a future as if it were not yet, still their movements,
which are the basis of time, do pass from future to past ; and
therefore they cannot be co-eternal with the Creator, in whose
movement we cannot say that there has been that which now
is not, or shall be that which is not yet. AVherefore, if God
always has been Lord, He has always had creatures under His
dominion, — creatures, however, not begotten of Him, but created
by Him out of nothing ; nor co-eternal with Him, for He was
before them, though at no time without them, because He
preceded them, not by the lapse of time, but by His abiding
eternity. But if I make this reply to those wdio demand
how He was always Creator, always Lord, if there were not
always a subject creation ; or how this was created, and not

504 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIT.

rather co-eternal with its Creator, if it always was, I fear I
may be accused of recklessly affirming what I know not,
instead of teaching what I know. I return, therefore, to that
wliicli our Creator has seen fit that we should know; and those
things which He has allowed the abler men to know in this
life, or has reserved to be known in the next by the perfected
saints, I acknowledge to be beyond my capacity. But I have
thouglit it right to discuss these matters without making
positive assertions, that they who read may be warned to ab-
stain from hazardous questions, and may not deem themselves
fit for everything. Let them rather endeavour to obey the
wholesome injunction of the ai)ostle, when he says, " For I
say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought
to think ; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt
to every man the measure of faith." ^ For if an infant receive
nourishment suited to its strength, it becomes capable, as it
gTows, of taking more ; but if its strength and capacity be
overtaxed, it dwines away in place of growing.

16. IIoio we are to understand God's promise of life eternal, xchkh vas
uttered before the ''eternal times."

I own that I do not know what ages passed before the
human race was created, yet I have no doubt that no created
thing is co-eternal with the Creator. But even the apostle
speaks of time as eternal, and this with reference, not to tlie
future, but, which is more surprising, to the past. For he
says, " In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie pro-
mised before the eternal times, but hath in due times mani-
fested His word." ^ You see he says that in the past there
have been eternal times, wliicli, however, were not co-eternal
witli God. And since God before these eternal times not
only existed, but also "promised" life eternal, which He
manifested in its own times (tliat is to say, in due times),
wliat else is tliis tlian His word ? For this is life eternal.
But tlien, liow did He promise ; for the promise was made to
nu)u, and yet they had no existence before eternal times ?

' Rom. xii. 3.

• Titus i. 2, o. Auf^istine bore follows tlu' version of .Toronic, and not the
Viilgate. Conip. Contra Prisril/. 0, and de Gen. c. Man. iv. 4.

BOOK XII.] CEEATION NOT A NEW IDEA TO GOD. 50

Does this not mean that, in His own eternity, and in His
CO- eternal word, that which was to be in its own time was
already predestined and fixed ?

17. What defence is made hy sound faith regarding God's unchangeable counsel
and will, against the reasonings of those who hold that the works of God
are eternally repeated in revolving cycles that restore all things as they were.

Of this, too, I have no doubt, that before the first man was
created, there never had been a man at all, neither this same
man himself recurring by I know not what cycles, and having
made I know not how many revolutions, nor any other of
similar nature. From this belief I am not frightened by
philosophical arguments, among which that is reckoned the
most acute which is founded on the assertion that the infinite
cannot be comprehended by any mode of knowledge. Conse-
quently, they argue, God has in His own mind finite concep-
tions of all finite things which He makes. Now it cannot
be supposed that His goodness was ever idle ; for if it were,
there should be ascribed to Him an awakening to activity in
time, from a past eternity of inactivity, as if He repented of
an idleness that had no beginning, and proceeded, therefore, to
make a beginning of work. This being th^ case, they say it
must be that the same things are always repeated, and that
as they pass, so they are destined always to return, whether
amidst all these changes the world remains the same, — the
world which has always been, and yet was created, — or that
the world in these revolutions is perpetually dying out and
being renewed ; otherwise, if we point to a time when the
works of God were begun, it would be believed that He con-
sidered His past eternal leisure to be inert and indolent, and
therefore condemned and altered it as displeasing to Himself.
Now if God is supposed to have been indeed always making
temporal things, but different from one another, and one after
the other, so that He thus came at last to make man, whom
He had never made before, then it may seem that He made
man not with knowledge (for they suppose no knowledge can
comprehend the infinite succession of creatures), but at the
dictate of the hour, as it struck Him at the moment, with a
sudden and accidental change of mind. On the other hand,
say they, if those cycles be admitted, and if we suppose tliat

506 THE CITY OF GOD. [cOOK XII.

the same temporal tilings are repeated, while the world either
remains identical through all these rotations, or else dies away
and is renewed, then there is ascribed to God neither the
slothful ease of a past eternity, nor a rash and unforeseen
creation. And if the same things be not thus repeated in
cycles, then tliey cannot by any science or prescience be com-
prehended in their endless diversity. Even though reason
could not refute, faith would smile at these argumentations,
with which the godless endeavour to turn our simple piety
from the right way, that we may walk with them '' in a circle."
But by the help of the Lord our God, even reason, and that
readily enough, shatters these revolving circles which con-
jecture frames. For that which specially leads these men
astray to prefer their own circles to the straight path of
truth, is, that they measure by their own human, changeable,
and narrow intellect the divine mind, which is absolutely
unchangeable, infinitely capacious, and, without succession of
thought, counting all things without number. So that saying
of the apostle comes true of them, for, " comparing themselves
with themselves, they do not understand."^ For because they
do, in virtue of a new purpose, whatever new thing has occurred
to them to be done (their minds being changeable), they con-
clude it is so with God ; and thus compare, not God, — for they
cannot conceive God, but think of one like themselves when
they think of Him, — not God, but themselves, and not with
Him, but with themselves. For our part, we dare not believe
that God is affected in one way when He works, in another
when He rests. Indeed, to say that He is aflected at all, is
an abuse of language, since it implies that there comes to be
something in His nature which was not there before. For he
who is affected is acted upon, and whatever is acted upon is
changeable. In His leisure, therefore, is no laziness, indolence,
inactivity ; as in His work is no labour, effort, industry. He
can act while He reposes, and repose while He acts. He can
begin a new work with (not a new, but) an eternal design ;
and what He has not made before, He does not now bcirin
to make because He repents of His former repose. But

^ 2 Cor. X. 12. Here, and in Enar. in Vs. xxxiv., and also in Cont. Faust.

xxii. 47, Augustine follows the Greek, and not the Vulgate,

BOOK XII.] OF god's KNOWLEDGE. 507

when one speaks of His former repose and subsequent opera-
tion (and I know not how men can understand these things),
this " former" and " subsequent" are applied only to the things
created, which formerly did not exist, and subsequently came
into existence. But in God the former purpose is not altered
and obliterated by the subsequent and different purpose, but
by one and the same eternal and unchangeable will He effected
regarding the things He created, both that formerly, so long
as they were not, they should not be, and that subsequently,
when they began to be, they should come into existence.
And thus, perhaps, He would show in a very striking way, to
those who have eyes for such things, how independent He is
of what He makes, and how it is of His own gratuitous good-
ness He creates, since from eternity He dwelt without creatures
in no less perfect a blessedness.

18. Against those who assert that things that are infinite^ cannot he
comprehended by the knowledge of God.

As for their other assertion, that God's knowledge cannot
comprehend things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm,
in order that they may sound the depths of their impiety, that
God does not know all numbers. For it is very certain that
they are infinite ; since, no matter at what number you suppose
an end to be made, this number can be, I will not say, in-
creased by the addition of one more, but however great it be,
and however vast be the multitude of which it is the rational
and scientific expression, it can still be not only doubled, but
even multiplied. INIoreover, each number is so defined by its
own properties, that no two numbers are equal. They are
therefore both unequal and different from one another ; and
while they are simply finite, collectively they are infinite.
Does God, therefore, not know numbers on account of this
infinity; and does His knowledge extend only to a certain
height in numbers, while of the rest He is ignorant ? AVho
is so left to himself as to say so ? Yet they can hardly pre-
tend to put numbers out of the question, or maintain that they
have nothing to do with the knowledge of God ; for Plato,'"^
their great authority, represents God as framing the world on

^ i.e. indefinite, or an indefinite succession of things.
^ Ajcain in the Timceus.

508 THE CITY OF GQD. [BOOK XII.

numerical principles ; and in our books also it is said to God,
" Thou hast ordered all things in number, and measure, and
weight."^ The prophet also says, " Who bringeth out their host
by number." ^ And the Saviour says in the Gospel, " The very
liairs of your head are all numbered." ^ Far be it, then, from
us to doubt that all number is known to Him " whose under-
standing," according to the Psalmist, " is infinite." * The in-
finity of number, though there be no numbering of infinite
numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him whose under-
standing is infinite. And thus, if everything which is com-
prehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of
him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way
made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge.
Wherefore, if the infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the
knowledge of God, by which it is comprehended, Avhat are we
poor creatures that we should presume to fix limits to His
knowledge, and say that unless the same temporal things be
repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God cannot either
foreknow His creatures that He may make them, or know
them when He has made them ? God, whose knowledge is
simply manifold, and uniform in its variety, comprehends all
incomprehensibles with so incomprehensible a comprehension,
that thouGjh He willed alwavs to make His later works novel
and unlike what went before them, He could not produce them
without order and foresight, nor conceive them suddenly, but
by His eternal foreknowledge.

19. Of icorlds ivithout end, or ages of arjcs.^

I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and
wliether these times wliich are called " ages of ages " are joined
togctlier in a continuous series, and succeed one another witli
a regulated diversity, and leave exempt from their vicissitudes
only those wlio are freed from tlieir misery, and abide witliout
end in a blessed immortality ; or whetlier these are called
" ages of ages," that we may understand that tlie ages remain
uncliangeable in God's unwavering wisdom, and are tlie efficient
causes, as it were, of those ages wliich are being spent in time.

1 Wisdom xi. 20. » Isa. xl. 2G. 3 Mutt. x. 30.

* Ps. cxlvii. 5. ^ De saeculis stcculorum.

BOOK XIL] theory OF CYCLES REFUTED. 509

Possibly " ages " is used for " age," so that nothing else is
meant by " ages of ages " than by " age of age," as nothing
else is meant by " heavens of heavens " than by " heaven of
heaven." For God called the firmament, above which are the
waters, " Heaven," and yet the psalm says, " Let the waters that
are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord." ^ Which
of these two meanings we are to attach to " ages of ages," or
whether there is not some other and better meaning still, is a
very profound question ; and the subject we are at present
handling presents no obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the
discussion of it, whether we may be able to determine any-
thing about it, or may only be made more cautious by its
further treatment, so as to be deterred from making any rash
affirmations in a matter of such obscurity. For at present we
are disputing the opinion that affirms the existence of those
periodic revolutions by which the same things are always re-
curring at intervals of time. Now, whichever of these sup-
positions regarding the " ages of ages" be the true one, it avails
nothing for the substantiating of those cycles ; for whether the
ages of ages be not a repetition of the same world, but differ-
ent worlds succeeding one another in a regulated connection,
the ransomed souls abiding in well-assured bliss without any
recurrence of misery, or whether the ages of ages be the eternal
causes which rule what shall be and is in time, it equally
follows, that those cycles which bring round the same things
have no existence ; and nothing more thoroughly explodes them
than the fact of the eternal life of the saints.

20. Of the impiety of those who assert that the souls which enjoy true and perfect
blessedness, must yet again and again in these periodic revolutions return
to labour and misery.

What pious ears could bear to hear that after a life spent
in so many and severe distresses (if, indeed, that should be
called a life at all which is rather a death, so utter that the
love of this present death makes us fear that death which de-
livers us from it), that after evils so disastrous, and miseries of
all kinds have at length been expiated and finished by the help
of true religion and wisdom, and when we have thus attained
to the vision of God, and have entered into bliss by the con-

^ Ps. cxlviii. 4.

510 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

templation of spiritual light and participation in His unchange-
able immortality, which we burn to attain, — that we must at
some time lose all this, and that they who do lose it are cast
down from that eternity, truth, and felicity to infernal mor-
tality and shameful foolishness, and are involved in accursed
woes, in which God is lost, truth liekl in detestation, and hap-
piness sought in iniquitous impurities ? and that this will
happen endlessly again and again, recurring at fixed intervals,
and in regularly returning periods ? and that tliis everlasting
and ceaseless revolution of definite cycles, which remove and
restore true misery and deceitful bliss in turn, is contrived in
order that God may be able to know Ilis own works, since on
the one hand He cannot rest from creating, and on the other,
cannot know the infinite number of His creatures, if He always
makes creatures ? "Wlio, I say, can listen to such things ?
Who can accept or suffer them to be spoken ? Were they true,
it were not only more prudent to keep silence regarding them,
but even (to express myself as best I can) it were the part of
wisdom not to know them. For if in the future world we
shall not remember these things, and by this oblivion be blessed,
why should we now increase our misery, abeady burdensome
enough, by the knowledge of them ? If, on the other hand,
the knowledge of them will be forced upon us hereafter, now
at least let us remain in ignorance, that in the present expec-
tation we may enjoy a blessedness which the future reality is
not to bestow ; since in this life we are expecting to obtain
life everlasting, but in the world to come are to discover it to
be blessed, but not everlasting.

And if they maintain that no one can attain to the blessed-
ness of the world to come, unless in this life lie has been in-
doctrinated in those cycles in which bliss and misery relieve
one another, how do they avow that the more a man loves God,
the more readily he attains to blessedness, — they who teach
what paralyzes love itself 1 For who would not be more re-
miss and lukewarm in his love for a person whom he thinks
he shall be forced to abandon, and whose truth and wisdom he
shall come to hate ; and this, too, after he has quite attained
to the utmost and most blissful knowledge of Him that he is
capable of? Can any one be faithful in his love, even to a

BOOK XII.] CREATION A NEW THING. 511

human friend, if he knows that he is destined to become his
enemy ? ^ God forbid that there be any truth in an opinion
which threatens us with a real misery that is never to end, but
is often and endlessly to be interrupted by intervals of fallacious
happiness. For what happiness can be more fallacious and
false than that in whose blaze of truth we yet remain ignorant
that we shall be miserable, or in whose most secure citadel we
yet fear that we shall be so ? For if, on the one hand, we are to
be ignorant of coming calamity, then our present misery is not so
shortsighted, for it is assured of coming bliss. If, on the other
hand, the disaster that threatens is not concealed from us in
the world to come, then the time of misery which is to be at
last exchanged for a state of blessedness, is spent by the soul
more happily than its time of happiness, which is to end in a
return to misery. And thus our expectation of unhappiness
is happy, but of happiness unhappy. And therefore, as we
here suffer present ills, and hereafter fear ills that are immi-
nent, it were truer to say that we shall always be miserable,
than that we can some time be happy.

But these things are declared to be false by the loud testi-
mony of religion and truth ; for religion truthfully promises a
true blessedness, of which we shall be eternally assured, and
which cannot be interrupted by any disaster. Let us there-
fore keep to the straight path, which is Christ, and, with Him
as our Guide and Saviour, let us turn away in heart and
mind from the unreal and futile c^-cles of the godless. Por-
phyry, Platonist tliough he was, abjured the opinion of his
school, that in these cycles souls are ceaselessly passing away
and returning, either being struck with the extravagance ot
the idea, or sobered by his knowledge of Christianity. As I
mentioned in the tenth book,^ he preferred saying that the
soul, as it had been sent into the world that it might know
evil, and be purged and delivered from it, was never again
exposed to such an experience after it had once returned to

^ Cicero lias the same {de Amicitla, IG) : " Quonam modo ([uisquam amicus
esse poterit, cui se putahit inimiciiin esse posse ?" He also quotes Scipio to tlie
eflect that no sentiment is move unfriendly to friendsliip than this, that we shoull
love as if some day we were to hate.

2 C. 30.

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

the Father. Aud if he abjured the tenets of his school, how
much more ought we Christians to abominate and avoid an
opinion so unfounded and hostile to our faith ? But having
disposed of these cycles and escaped out of them, no neces-
sity compels us to suppose that the human race had no be-
ginning in time, on the ground tliat there is nothing new in
nature which, by I know not what cycles, has not at some
previous period existed, and is not hereafter to exist again.
For if the soul, once delivered, as it never was before, is never
to return to misery, then there happens in its experience some-
thing which never happened before ; and this, indeed, some-
thing of the greatest consequence, to wit, the secure entrance
into eternal felicity. And if in an immortal nature there can
occur a novelty, which never has been, nor ever shall be, re-
produced by any cycle, why is it disputed that the same may
occur in mortal natures ? If they maintain that blessedness
is no new experience to the soul, but only a return to that
state in which it has been eternally, then at least its deliver-
ance from misery is something new, since, by their own show-
ing, the misery from which it is delivered is itself, too, a new
experience. And if this new experience fell out by accident,
and was not embraced in the order of tilings appointed by
Divine Providence, then where are those determinate and
measured cycles in which no new thing happens, but all
things are reproduced as they were before ? If, however, this
new experience was embraced in that providential order of
nature (whether the soul was exposed to the evil of this world
for the sake of discipline, or feU into it by sin), then it is
possible for new things to happen which never happened
before, and which yet are not extraneous to the order of
nature. And if the soul is able by its own imprudence to
create for itself a new misery, which was not unforeseen by the
Divine Providence, but was provided for in the order of nature
along with the deliverance from it, how can we, even with
aU the raslmess of human \'^nity, presume to deny that God
can create new things — new to the world, but not to Him —
which lie never before created, but yet foresaw from all
eternity ? If they say that it is indeed true that ransomed
souls return no more to misery, but that even so no new thing

BOOK XII.] NO CHANGE OF GOD'S WILL IN CREATION. 513

happens, since there always have been, now are, and ever shall
be a succession of ransomed souls, they must at least grant
that in this case there are new souls to whom the misery and
the deliverance from it are new. For if they maintain that
those souls out of which new men are daily being made (from
whose bodies, if they have lived wisely, they are so delivered
that they never return to misery) are not new, but have
existed from eternity, they must logically admit that they are
infinite. For however great a finite number of souls there
were, that would not have sufficed to make perpetually new
men from eternity, — men whose souls were to be eternally
freed from this mortal state, and never afterwards to return to
it. And our philosophers will find it hard to explain how there
is an infinite number of souls in an order of nature which
they require shaU be finite, that it may be known by God.

And now that we have exploded these cycles which were
supposed to bring back the soul at fixed periods to the same
miseries, what can seem more in accordance with godly reason
than to believe that it is possible for God both to create new
things never before created, and in doing so, to preserve His
wiU unaltered ? But whether the number of eternally re-
deemed souls can be continually increased or not, let the
philosophers themselves decide, who are so subtle in deter-
mining where infinity cannot be admitted. For our own part,
our reasoning holds in either case. For if the number of
souls can be indefinitely increased, what reason is there to deny
that what had never before been created, could be created ?
since the number of ransomed souls never existed before, and
has yet not only been once made, but will never cease to be
anew coming into being. If, on the other hand, it be more
suitable that the number of eternally ransomed souls be definite,
and that this number will never be increased, yet this number,
whatever it be, did assuredly never exist before, and it cannot
increase, and reach the amount it signifies, without having some
beginning ; and this beginning never before existed. That this
beginning, therefore, might be, the first man was created.

21. That there was created at first hut one individual, and that the human
race was created in him.

Now that we have solved, as well as we could, this very

VOL. L 2 K

THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

ditlicult question about the eternal God creating new things,
without any novelty of wiU, it is easy to see how much better
it is that God was pleased to produce the human race from the
one individual whom He created, than if He had originated it
in several men. For as to the other animals. He created some
solitary, and naturally seeking lonely places, — as the eagles,
kites, lions, wolves, and such like ; others gregarious, which
herd together, and prefer to live in company, — as pigeons,
starlings, stags, and little fallow deer, and the like : but
neither class did He cause to be propagated from individuals,
but called into being several at once. Man, on the other
hand, whose nature was to be a mean between the angelic and
bestial. He created in such sort, that if he remained in subjec-
tion to His Creator as his rightful Lord, and piously kept His
commandments, he should pass into the company of the angels,
and obtain, without the intervention of death,* a blessed and
endless immortality ; but if he offended the Lord his God by
a proud and disobedient use of his free will, he should be-
come subject to death, and live as the beasts do, — the slave
of appetite, and doomed to eternal punishment after death.
And therefore God created only one single man, not, certainly,
that he might be a solitary bereft of all society, but that by
this means the unity of society and the bond of concord might
be more effectually commended to him, men being bound
together not only by similarity of nature, but by family affec-
tion. And indeed He did not even create the woman that
was to be given him as his wife, as he created the man, but
created her out of the man, that the whole human race might
derive from one man.

22. Tliat God foreknew that the first man would sin, and that lie at the same
time foresaio how'large a viultitude of godly persons would by His grace
be translated to the fellowship of the angels.

And God was not ignorant that man would sin, and that,
being himself made sul)ject now to death, he would propagate
men doomed to die, and that these mortals would run to such
enormities in sin, that even the beasts devoid of rational will,
and who were created in numbers from the waters and the
earth, would live more securely and peaceably with their own

1 Cocjuaeus rcmark.s that this is levelled against the Pelagians.

BOOK XIL] man created IN GOD'S IMAGE. 515

kind than men, who had been propagated from one individual
for the very purpose of commending concord. For not even
lions or dragons have ever waged with their kind such wars
as men have waged with one another.^ But God foresaw also
that by His grace a people would be called to adoption, and
that they, being justified by the remission of their sins, would
be united by the Holy Ghost to the holy angels in eternal
peace, the last enemy, death, being destroyed ; and He knew
that this people would derive profit from the consideration
that God had caused all men to be derived from one, for the
sake of showing how highly He prizes unity in a multitude.

23. Of the nature of the human soul created in the image of God.

God, then, made man in His own image. For He created
for him a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that
he might excel all the creatures of earth, air, and sea, which
were not so gifted. And when He had formed the man out
of the dust of the earth, and had willed that his soul should
be such as I have said, — whether He had already made it,
and now by breathing imparted it to man, or rather made it
by breathing, so that that breath which God made by breath-
ing (for what else is "to breathe" than to make breath?) is
the soul,^ — He made also a wife for him, to aid him in the
work of generating his kind, and her He formed of a bone
taken out of the man's side, working in a divine manner.
For we are not to conceive of this work in a carnal fashion,
as if God wrought as we commonly see artisans, who use their
hands, and material furnished to them, that by their artistic
skill they may fashion some material object. God's hand is
God's power ; and He, working invisibly, effects visible results.
But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure

1 "Quando leoni
Fortior eripuit vitam leo ? quo nemore unquarn
Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri ?
Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem
Perpetuam ; sajvis inter se convenit ursis.
Ast liomini," etc.

Juvenal, Sat. xv, 160-5.
— Soe also the very striking lines which precede these.

2 See this further discussed in Gen. ad Lit. vii. 35, and in Delitzsch's Blhl.
Psychology.

516 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

by customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of
God, whereby He understands and produces without seeds
even seeds themselves ; and because they cannot understand
the things which at the beginning were created, they are
sceptical regarding them — as if the very things which they
do know about human propagation, conceptions and births,
would seem less incredible if told to those who had no ex-
perience of them ; though these very things, too, are attributed
by many rather to physical and natural causes than to the
work of the divine mind.

24. Whetlier the angels can he said to Ip the creators of any, even the least

creature.

But in this book we have nothing to do with those who do
not believe that the divine mind made or cares for this world.
As for those who believe their own Plato, that all mortal
animals — among whom man holds the pre-eminent place, and
is near to the gods themselves — were created not by that most
high God who made the world, but by other lesser gods
created by the Supreme, and exercising a delegated power
under His control, — if only those persons be delivered from
the superstition which prompts them to seek a plausible
reason for paying divine honours and sacrificing to these gods
as their creators, they will easily be disentangled also from
this their error. For it is blasphemy to believe or to say
(even before it can be understood) that any other than God
is creator of any nature, be it never so small and mortal.
And as for the angels, whom those Platonists prefer to call
gods, although they do, so far as they are permitted and com-
missioned, aid in the production of the things around us, yet
not on that account are we to call them creators, any more
than we call gardeners the creators of fruits and trees.

25. That God alone is the Creator of every kind of creature^ whatever its
nature or form.

For whereas there is one form which is given from without
to every bodily substance, — such as the form which is con-
structed by potters and smiths, and that class of artists who
paint and fashion forms like the body of animals, — but an-
other and internal form which is not itself constructed, but,
us the efficient cause, produces not only the natural bodily

BOOK XII.] GOD THE SOLE CREATOR. 517

forms, but even the life itself of the living creatures, and
which proceeds from the secret and hidden choice of an in-
telligent and living nature, — let that first-mentioned form be
attributed to every artificer, but this latter to one only, God,
the Creator and OriGjinator who made the world itself and the
angels, without the help of world or angels. For the same
divine and, so to speak, creative energy, which cannot be
made, but makes, and which gave to the earth and sky their
roundness, — this same divine, effective, and creative energy
gave their roundness to the eye and to the apple ; and the
other natural objects which we anywhere see, received also
their form, not from without, but from the secret and pro-
found might of the Creator, who said, "Do not I fill heaven
and earth ?"-^ and whose wisdom it is that "reacheth from
one end to another mightily ; and sweetly doth she order all
things."^ Wherefore I know not what kind of aid the angels,
themselves created first, afforded to the Creator in making
other things. I cannot ascribe to them what perhaps they
cannot do, neither ought I to deny them such faculty as
they have. But, by their leave, I attribute the creating and
originating work which gave being to all natures to God, to
whom they themselves thankfully ascribe their existence.
We do not call gardeners the creators of their fruits, for we
read, " Xeither is he that planteth anything, neither he that
watereth, but God that giveth the increase."^ Nay, not even
the earth itself do we call a creator, though she seems to be
the prolific mother of all things which she aids in germinating
and bursting forth from the seed, and which she keeps rooted
in her own breast ; for we likewise read, " God giveth it a
body, as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own
body."* We ought not even to call a woman the creatress
of her own offspring ; for He rather is its creator who said to
His servant, " Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew
thee."^ And although the various mental emotions of a
pregnant woman do produce in the fruit of her womb similar
qualities, — as Jacob Avith his peeled wands caused piebald
sheep to be produced, — yet the mother as little creates her

' Jer. xxiii. 24. 2 Wisdom viii. 1. M Cor. iii. 7.

* 1 Cor. XV. 38. ^ Jcr. i. 5.

518 THE CITY OF r:oD. [book xii.

offspring, as she created herself. Whatever bodily or seminal
causes, then, may be used lor the production of things, either
by the co-operation of angels, men, or the lower animals, or
by sexual generation ; and wliatever power the desires and
mental emotions of the mother have to produce in the tender
and plastic fatus, corresponding lineaments and colours ; yet
the natures themselves, which are thus variously affected, are
the production of none but the most high God. It is His
occult power wliich pervades all things, and is present in all
without being contaminated, which gives being to all that is,
and modifies and limits its existence ; so that without Him
it would not be tluis or thus, nor would have any being at
all.^ If, then, in regard to tliat outward form which the
workman's hand imposes on liis work, we do not say that
Rome and Alexandria were built by masons and architects,
but by the kings by whose will, plan, and resources they were
built, so that the one has Romulus, the other Alexander, for
its founder ; with how much greater reason ought we to say
that God alone is the Author of all natures, since He neither
uses for His work any material wdiich was not made by Him,
nor any workmen who were not also made by Him, and
since, if He were, so to speak, to withdraw from created things
His creative power, they would straightway relapse into the
nothingness in which they were before they were created ?
" Before," I mean, in respect of eternity, not of time. For
what other creator could there be of time, than He who
created those things whose movements make time ?^

26. Of that opinion of the Plalonists, that the angels were themselves ijulced
created by God, but that afterwards they created man's body.

It is obvious, that in attributing the creation of the other
animals to those inferior gods who were made by the Supreme,
he meant it to be understood that the immortal part was
taken from God Himself, and that these minor creators added
the mortal part ; that is to say, he meant them to be con-
sidered the creators of our bodies, but not of our souls. But
since Porphyry maintains that if the soul is to be purified,
all entanglement with a body must be escaped from ; and
at the same time agrees with Plato and the Platonists in

' Compare de Trin. iii. 13-lG. 2 gge Hook xi. 5.

BOOK XIL] angels NOT CREATORS. 519

tliinking that those who have not spent a temperate and
honourable life return to mortal bodies as their punishment
(to bodies of brutes in Plato's opinion, to human bodies in
Porphyry's) ; it follows that those whom they would have us
worship as our parents and authors, that they may plausibly
call them gods, are, after all, but the forgers of our fetters
and chains, — not our creators, but our jailers and turnkeys,
who lock us up in the most bitter and melancholy house of
correction. Let the Platonists, then, either cease menacing
us with our bodies as the punishment of our souls, or preach-
ing that we are to worship as gods those whose work upon us
they exhort us by all means in our power to avoid and escape
from. But, indeed, both opinions are quite false. It is
false that souls return again to this life to be punished ; and
it is false that there is any other creator of anything in
heaven or earth, than He who made the heaven and the earth.
For if we live in a body only to expiate our sins, how says
Plato in another place, that the world could not have been
the most beautiful and good, had it not been filled with all
kinds of creatures, mortal and immortal ?^ But if our creation
even as mortals be a divine benefit, how is it a punishment
to be restored to a body, that is, to a divine benefit ? And if
God, as Plato continually maintains, embraced in His eternal
intelligence the ideas both of the universe and of aU the
animals, how, then, should He not with His own hand make
them all ? Could He be unwilling to be the constructor of
works, the idea and plan of which called for His ineffable
and ineffably to be praised intelligence ?

27. That the loJiole plenitude of the human race was embraced in the first man,
and that God there saw the portion of it which loas to he honoured and
reioarded, and that which was to he condemned and punished.

With good cause, therefore, does the true religion recognise
and proclaim that the same God who created the universal
cosmos, created also all the animals, souls as well as bodies.
Among the terrestrial animals man was made by Him in His

^ "The Deity, desirous of making the universe in all respects resemble the
most beautiful and entirely pertect of intelligible objects, formed it into one
visible animal, containing within itself all the other animals witli which it is
naturally allied." — Timanis, c. xi.

520 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XII.

own image, and, for the reason I have given, was made one
individual, though he was not left solitary. For there is
nothing so social by nature, so unsocial by its corruption, as
this race. And human nature has nothing more appropriate,
either for the prevention of discord, or for the healing of it,
where it exists, than the remembrance of that first parent of
us all, whom God was pleased to create alone, that all men
might be derived from one, and that tliey might thus be
admonished to preserve unity among their whole multitude.
But from the fact that the woman was made for him from
his side, it was plainly meant that we should learn how dear
the bond between man and wife should be. These works of
God do certainly seem extraordinary, because they are the first
works. They who do not believe them, ouglit not to believe
any prodigies ; for these would not be called prodigies did they
not happen out of the ordinary course of nature. But, is it
possible that anything should happen in vain, however hidden
lie its cause, in so grand a government of divine providence ?
One of the sacred Psalmists says, " Come, behold the works
of the Lord, what prodigies He hath ^vrought in tlie earth." ^
Why God made woman out of man's side, and what this first
prodigy prefigured, I shall, with God's help, toll in another
place. But at present, since this book must be concluded, let
us merely say that in this first man, who was created in the
beginning, there was laid the foundation, not indeed evidently,
but in God's foreknowledge, of these two cities or societies, so
far as regards the human race. For from that man all men
were to be derived — some of them to be associated with the
good angels in their reward, others witli the wicked in punisli-
ment ; all being ordered by the secret yet just judgment of
God. For since it is written, " All the paths of the Lord are
raercy and truth,"' neither can His grace be unjust, nor His
justice cruel.

1 Vs. xlvi. 8. 2 Ts. XXV. 10.

BOOK XIII.] THE NATURE OF DEATH. 521

BOOK THIRTEENTH.

ARGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK IT IS TAUGHT THAT DEATH IS PENAL, AND HAD ITS
ORIGIN IN ADAM's SIN.

1. Of the fall of the first man, through which mortality has been contracted.

HAVING disposed of the very difficult questions con-
cerninsr the oric^iii of our world and the becinnincf of
the human race, the natural order requires that we now
discuss the fall of the first man (we may say of the first
men), and of the origin and propagation of human death.
For God had not made man like the angels, in such a
condition that, even though they had sinned, they could none
the more die. He had so made them, that if they discharged
the obligations of obedience, an angelic immortality and a
blessed eternity might ensue, without the intervention of
death; but if they disobeyed, death should be visited on
them with just sentence — which, too, has been spoken to in
the preceding book.

2. Of that death which can affect an immortal soul, and of that to ichich
the body is subject.

But I see I must speak a little more carefuUy of the
nature of death. For although the human soul is truly
affirmed to be immortal, yet it also has a certain death of
its own. For it is therefore called immortal, because, in a
sense, it does not cease to live and to feel ; wliile the body is
called mortal, because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot
by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul takes place
when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the
soul forsakes it. Therefore the death of both — that is, of the
whole man — occurs when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes
the body. For, in tliis case, neither is God the life of the
soul, nor the soul the life of the body. And this death of
the whole man is followed by that which, on the authority

522 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

of the divine oracles, we call the second death. This tlie
Saviour referred to when He said, " Fear Him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell."^ And since this
does not happen before the soul is so joined to its body that
they cannot be separated at all, it may be matter of wonder
how the body can be said to be killed by that death in which
it is not forsaken by the soul, but, being animated and ren-
dered sensitive by it, is tormented. For in that penal and
everlasting punishment, of which in its own place we are to
speak more at large, the soul is justly said to die, because it
does not live in connection with God ; but how can we say
that the body is dead, seeing that it lives by the soul ? For
it could not otherwise feel the bodily torments which are to
follow the resurrection. Is it because life of every kind is
good, and pain an evil, that we decline to say that that body
lives, in which the soul is the cause, not of life, but of pain ?
The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot
live well unless by God working in it wliat is good ; and the
body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body,
whether itself be living by God or no. For the wicked man's
life in the body is a life not of the soul, but of the body,
which even dead souls — that is, souls forsaken of God — can
confer upon bodies, how little soever of their own proper life,
by which they are immortal, they retain. But in tlie last
damnation, though man does not cease to feel, yet because
this feeling of his is neither sweet with pleasure nor whole-
some with repose, but painfully penal, it is not without reason
caUed death rather than life. And it is called the second
death because it follows the first, which sunders the two
cohering essences, whether those be God and the soul, or
the soul and the body. Of tlie first and bodily death, then,
we may say that to the good it is good, and evil to the evil.
But, doubtless, tlie second, as it happens to none of the good,
so it can be good for none.

3. Whether death, which hy the sin of our first parents has passed upon all
men, is the punishment of sin, even to the good.

But a question not to be shirked arises : Whether in very
truth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the

' Matt. X. 2S.

BOOK XIII.] OF SIN AND DEATH. 523

good?* For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a
tiling should be the punishment of sin ? For the first men
would not have suffered death had they not sinned. How,/
then, can that be good to the good, which could not have!
liappened except to the evil ? Then, again, if it could only
liappen to the evil, to the good it ought not to be good, but
non-existent. For why should there be any punishment where
there is nothing to punish ? Wherefore we must say that the
first men were indeed so created, that if they had not sinned,
they would not have experienced any Idnd of death ; but that, V-^
having become sinners, they were so punished with death, that '
whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished
with the same death. For nothing else could be born of them
than that which they themselves had been. Their nature was
deteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemna-
tion of their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those
who first sinned, became a natural consequence in their chil-
dren. For man is not produced by man, as he was from the
dust. For dust was the material out of which man was
made : man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Where-
fore earth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be
made of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the
offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole I
human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman/
to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine
sentence of its own condemnation ; and what man was made,
not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this
he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are con-
cerned. For neither by sin nor its punishment was he him-
self reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body
and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that/
infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin'
it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in
the fashion of their life and of their death ; as it is written,
" Man when he was in honour understood not ; he became
like the beasts that have no understanding."^ Xay more,

* On this question compare the 24th and 25th epistles of Jerome, de ohliu
Leoe, and de ohliu Blesillce fiUce. CoqiuTus.
2 Ps. xlix. 12.

524 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of
their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the
most tender offspring of other animals ; as if the force that
dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other
living things so much the more eminently, as its energy has
been longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed,
just as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been
drawn. To this infantine imbecility^ the first man did not
fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence ; but human
nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an
extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of dis-
obedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying.
And what he himself had become by sin and punishment,
such he generated those whom he begot ; that is to say, sub-
ject to sin and death. And if infants are delivered from this
bondage of sin by the Eedeemer's grace, they can suffer only
this death which separates soul and body ; but being redeemed
from the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second
endless and penal death.

4. Why death, the 'punishment of sin, is not withheld from those who by the
grace of regeneration are absolved from sin.

If, moreover, any one is solicitous about this point, how, if
death be the very punishment of sin, they whose guilt is can-
celled by grace do yet suffer death, this difficulty has already
been handled and solved in our other work which we have
written on the baptism of infants.^ There it was said that the
parting of soul and body was left, though its connection with
sin was removed, for this reason, that if the immortality of
the body followed immediately upon the sacrament of regene-
ration, faith itself would be thereby enervated. For faith is
then only faith when it waits in hope for v.'hat is not yet seen
in substance. And by the vigour and conflict of faith, at least
in times past, was the fear of death overcome. Specially was
this conspicuous in the holy martyrs, who could have had no
victory, no glory, to whom there could not even have been any
conflict, if, after the laver of regeneration, saints could not suffer

^ On wliich see further in de Peccat. Mer. i. 67 et seq.

2 De Baptismo Parvidorum is the second half of the title of the book, de
Peccaluriim Merilis et Pemissionc.

BOOK xiil] why the eegenerate die. 525

bodily death. Wlio would not, then, in company with the
infants presented for baptism, run to the grace ot Christ, that
so he might not be dismissed from the body ? And thus faith
would not be tested with an unseen reward ; and so would
not even be faith, seeldnfr and receivincj an immediate recom-
pense of its works. But now, by the greater and more ad-
mirable grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned
to the service of righteousness. For then it was proclaimed
to man, " If thou sinnest, thou shalt die ;" now it is said to
the mart}T, " Die, that thou sin not." Then it was said, " If
ye transgress the commandments, ye shall die ;" now it is
said, " If ye decline death, ye transgress the commandment."
That which was formerly set as an object of terror, that men
might not sin, is now to be undergone if we would not sin.
Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punish-
ment of wickedness has become the armour of virtue, and the
penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.
For then death was incurred by sinning, now righteousness is
fulfilled by dying. In the case of the holy martyrs it is so ;
for to them the persecutor proposes the alternative, apostasy
or death. For the righteous prefer by believing to suffer what
the first transgressors suffered by not believing. For unless
they had sinned, they would not have died ; but the martyrs
sin if they do not die. The one died because they sinned, the
others do not sin because they die. By the guilt of the first,
punishment was incurred ; by the punishment of the second,
guilt is prevented. Not that death, which was before an evil,
has become something good, but only that God has granted to
faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to
life, should become the instrument by which life is reached.

5. As the ivicked make an ill use of the law, which is good, so the good make
a good use of death, which w an ill.

The apostle, wishing to show how hurtful a thing sin is,
when grace does not aid us, has not hesitated to say that the
strength of sin is that very law by wliich sin is prohibited.
" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." ^
Most certainly true ; for prohibition increases the desire of
illicit action, if righteousness is not so loved that the desire of

' 1 Cor. XV. 56.

526 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

siu is conquered by that love. But unless divine gi^ace aid
us, we cannot love nor delight in true righteousness. But lest
the law should be thought to be an evil, since it is called the
strength of sin, the apostle, when treating a similar question in
another place, says, " The law indeed is holy, and the command-
ment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is holy
made death unto me ? God forbid. But sin, that it might ap-
pear sin, working death in me by that winch is good ; that sin
by the commandment might become exceeding sinful"^ Ex-
ceeding, he says, because the transgression is more heinous when
through the increasing lust of sin the law itself also is despised.
AVhy have we thought it worth while to mention this ? For
this reason, because, as the law is not an evil when it increases
the lust of those who sin, so neither is death a ^rood thinii
when it increases the glory of those who suffer it, since eitlier
tlie former is abandoned wickedly, and makes transgressors, or
the latter is embraced for the truth's sake, and makes mart}Ts.
And thus the law is indeed good, because it is prohibition of
sin, and death is evil because it is the wacjes of sin ; but as
wicked men make an evil use not only of evil, but also of good
things, so the righteous make a good use not only of good, but
also of evil things. Whence it comes to pass that the wicked
make an ill use of the law, though the law is good ; and that
the good die well, though death is an evil.

C. Of the evil of death in general, considered as the separation of soul
and body.

Wherefore, as regards bodily death, that is, the separation
of the soul from the body, it is good unto none while it is
being endured by those whom we say are in the article of
death. For the very violence with which body and soul are
wrenched asunder, which in the living liad been conjoined
and closely intertwined, brings with it a harsh experience,
jarring horridly on nature so long as it continues, till there
comes a total loss of sensation, whicli arose from tlie very
interpenetration of spirit and Hesh. And all this anguish is
sometimes forestalled by one stroke of the body or sudden
flitting of the soul, the swiftness of wliich prevents it from
being felt. But wliatever that may be in the dying wliich

» liom. vii. 12, 13.

BOOK XIII.] DEATH OF THE UNBAPTIZED. 527

with violently painful sensation robs of all sensation, yet, when
it is piously and faithfully borne, it increases the merit of
patience, but does not make the name of punishment inap-
plicable. Death, proceeding by ordinary generation from the
first man, is the punishment of all who are born of him, yet,
if it be endured for righteousness' sake, it becomes the glory
of those who are born again ; and though death be the award
of sin, it sometimes secures that nothing be awarded to sin.

7. Of the death which the unbaptized^ suffer for the confession of Christ.

For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this
confession is of the same ef&cacy for the remission of sins as
if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He
who said, " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,"^ made also an ex-
ception in their favour, in that other sentence where He no
less absolutely said, " Whosoever shall confess me before men,
him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven ;"^
and in another place, " Whosoever will lose his life for my
sake, shall find it."* And this explains the verse, " Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."^ For
what is more precious than a death by which a man's sins are
all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold ? For
those who have been baptized when they could no longer
escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins
blotted out, have not equal merit with those who did not
defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but pre-
ferred to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by
denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism. And even
had they denied Him under pressure of the fear of death, this
too would have been forgiven them in that baptism, in which
was remitted even the enormous wickedness of those who had
slain Christ. But how abundant in these men must have
been the grace of the Spirit, who breathes where He listeth,
seeing that they so dearly loved Christ as to be unable to deny
Him even in so sore an emergency, and with so sure a hope
oi pardon ! Precious, therefore, is the death of the saints, to

* Literally, un regenerate. ' John iii. 5. ^ ^Matt. x. 32.

4 Matt. xvi. 25. 6 Ps. cxvi. 15.

528 THE CITY OF GOD. [r.OOK XIIL

whom the grace of Christ has been applied with such gracious
effects, that they do not hesitate to meet death themselves, if
so be they might meet Him. And precious is it, also, because
it has proved tliat what was originally ordained for the punish-
ment of the sinner, has been used for the production of a richer
harvest of righteousness. But not on tliis account should we
look upon death as a good thing, for it is diverted to such
useful purposes, not by any virtue of its own, but by the
divine interference. Death was originally proposed as an
object of dread, that sin might not be committed ; now it must
be undergone that sin may not be committed, or, if committed,
be remitted, and the award of righteousness bestowed on him
whose victory has earned it.

8. Tliat the saints, by suffering the first death for the truth's sake, are
freed from the second.

For if we look at the matter a little more carefully, we shall
see that even when a man dies faithfully and laudably for the
truth's sake, it is still death he is avoiding. For he submits
to some part of death, for the very purpose of avoiding the
whole, and the second and eternal death over and above. He
submits to the separation of soul and body, lest the soul be
separated both from God and from the body, and so the whole
first death be completed, and the second death receive him
everlastingly. Wherefore death is indeed, as I said, good to
none while it is being actually suffered, and while it is sub-
duing the dying to its power ; but it is meritoriously endured
for the sake of retaining or winning what is good. And re-
garding what happens after death, it is no absurdity to say
that death is good to the good, and evil to the evil. For the
disembodied spirits of the just are at rest ; but those of the
wicked suffer punishment till their bodies rise again, — those of
the just to life everlasting, and of the others to death eternal,
which is called the second death.

9. Wlicthtr we should say that the moment of death, vi which sensation ceases,
occurs in the experience of the dying or in that of the dtad.

The point of time in which tlie souls of the good and evil

are separated from the body, are we to say it is after death, or

in death rather ? If it is after death, tlien it is not death

which is good or evil, since death is done with and past, but

BOOK XIII.] LIFE A GRADUAL DEATH. 529

it is tlie life wliicli the soul lias now entered on. Death was
an evil when it was present, that is to say, when it was being
suffered by the dying ; for to them it brought with it a severe
and grievous experience, which the good make a good use ol.
But when death is past, how can that which no longer is be
either good or evil ? Still further, if we examine the matter
more closely, we shall see that even that sore and grievous
pain, which the dying experience is not death itself. For so
long as they have any sensation, they are certainly still alive ;
and, if still alive, must rather be said to be in a state previous
to death than in death. For when death actually comes, it
robs us of all bodily sensation, which, while death is only ap-
proaching, is painful. And thus it is difficult to explain how
we speak of those who are not yet dead, but are agonized in
their last and mortal extremity, as being in the article of
death. Yet what else can w^e call them than dying persons ?
for when death which was imminent shall have actually come,
we can no longer call them dying but dead. Xo one, there-
fore, is dying unless living ; since even he who is in the last
extremity of life, and, as we say, giving up the ghost, yet lives.
The same person is therefore at once dying and living, but
drawing near to death, departing from life ; yet in life, because
his spirit yet abides in the body ; not yet in death, because
not yet has his spirit forsaken the body. But if, when it has
forsaken it, the man is not even then in death, but after death,
who shall say when he is in death ? On the one hand, no one
can be called dying, if a man cannot be dying and living at
the same time ; and as long as the soul is in the body, we
cannot deny that he is living. On the other hand, if the man
who is approaching death be rather called dying, I know not
who is living.

10. Of the life of mortals, which is rather to he called death than life.

For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than
we begin to move ceaselessly towards death.^ For in the

^ Much of this paradoxical statement ahout death is taken from Seneca. Ser,
among other phices, his epistle on the premeditation of future dangers, the
passage beginuing, " Quotidie morimur, quotidie enim demitur aliqua pars
vitae."

VOL. L - 2 L

530 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XITT.

whole course of this life (if life we must call it) its mutability
tends towards death. Certainly there is no one who is not
nearer it this year than last year, and to-morrow than to-day,
and to-day than yesterday, and a short while hence than now,
and now than a short while ago. For whatever time we live
is deducted from our whole term of life, and that which
remains is daily becoming less and less ; so that our whole
life is nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is
allowed to stand still for a little space, or to go somewhat
more slowly, but all are driven forwards with an impartial
movement, and with equal rapidity. For he whose life is short
spends a day no more swiftly than he whose life is longer.
But while the equal moments are impartially snatched from
both, the one has a nearer and the other a more remote goal
to reach with this their equal speed. It is one thing to make
a longer journey, and another to walk more slowly. He,
therefore, who s;^ends longer time on his way to death does
not proceed at a more leisurely pace, but goes over more
ground. Further, if every man begins to die, that is, is in
death, as soon as death has begun to show itself in him (by
taking away life, to wit ; for when life is all taken away, the
man will be then not in death, but after death), then he begins
to die so soon as he begins to live. For what else is going
on in all his days, hours, and moments, until this slow-work-
ing death is fully consummated ? And then comes the time
after death, instead of that in which life was being withdrawn,
and which we called being in death. Man, then, is never in
life from the moment he dwells in this dying ratlier than
living body, — if, at least, he cannot be in life and death at
once. Or rather, shall we say, he is in both ? — in life,
namely, which he lives till all is consumed ; but in death
also, which he dies as his life is consumed ? For if he is not
in life, what is it which is consumed till all be <]:one ? And
if he is not in deatli, what is this consumption itself? For
when the wliole of life has been consumed, the expression
" after death" would be meaningless, had that consumption
not been death. And if, wlien it has all been consumed, a
man is not in death but after death, when is he in deatli,
unless when life is being consumed away ?

BOOK XIIL] of the MOMENT OF DYING. 531

11. Whether one can both be living and dead at the same time.

But if it is absurd to say that a man is in death before he
reaches death (for to what is his course running as he passes
through life, if already he is in death ?), and if it outrage
common usage to speak of a man being at once alive and
dead, as much as it does so, to speak of him as at once asleep
and awake, it remains to be asked when a man is dying ?
For, before death comes, he is not dying but living; and
when death has come, he is not dying but dead. The one is
before, the other after death. When, then, is he in death so
that we can say he is dying ? For as there are three times,
before death, in death, after death, so there are three states
corresponding, living, dying, dead. And it is very hard to
define when a man is in death or dying, when he is neither
living, which is before death, nor dead, which is after death,
but dying, which is in death. For so long as the soul is in
the body, especially if consciousness remain, the man certainly
lives; for body and soul constitute the man. And thus,
before death, he cannot be said to be in death ; but when,
on the other hand, the soul has departed, and all bodily
sensation is extinct, death is past, and the man is dead.
Between these two states the dying condition finds no place ;
for if a man yet lives, death has not arrived ; if he has ceased
to live, death is past. Never, then, is he dying, that is, com-
prehended in the state of death. So also in the passing of
time, — you try to lay your finger on the present, and cannot
find it, because the present occupies no space, but is only
the transition of time from the future to the past. Must we
then conclude that there is thus no death of the body at all ?
For if there is, where is it, since it is in no one, and no one
can be in it ? Since, indeed, if there is yet life, death is not
yet ; for this state is before deatli, not in death : and if life
has already ceased, death is not present ; for this state is
after death, not in death. On the other hand, if tliere is
no death before or after, what do we mean when we say
"after death," or "before death?" This is a foolish way
of speaking if there is no death. And would that we had
lived so well in Paradise that in very truth there were now
no death ! But not only does it now exist, but so grievous

532 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

a thing is it, that no skill is sufficient either to explain or to
escape it.

Let us, then, speak in the customary Avay, — no man ought
to speak otherwise, — and let us call the time before death
come, "before death ;" as it is WTitten, "Praise no man before
his death." ^ And when it has happened, let us say that
" after death" this or that took place. And of the present
time let us speak as best we can, as when we say, "He,
when dying, made his will, and left this or that to such and
such persons," — though, of course, he could not do so unless
he were living, and did this rather before death than in death.
And let us use the same phraseology as Scripture uses ; for it
makes no scruple of saying that the dead are not after but in
death. So that verse, " For in death there is no remembrance
of thee."^ For until the resurrection men are justly said to
be in death; as every one is said to be in sleep till he
awakes. However, though w^e can say of persons in sleep
that they are sleeping, w^e cannot speak in this way of the
dead, and say they are dying. For, so far as regards the
death of the body, of which we are now speaking, one cannot
say that those who are already separated from their bodies
continue dying. But this, you see, is just what I was saying,
— that no words can explain how either the dying are said
to live, or how the dead are said, even after death, to be in
death. For how can they be after death if they be in death,
especially when we do not even call them dying, as we call
those in sleep, sleeping ; and those in languor, languishing ;
and those in grief, grieving ; and those in life, living ? And
yet the dead, until they rise again, are said to be in death,
but cannot be called dying.

And therefore I think it has not unsuitably nor inappro-
priately come to pass, though not by the intention of man,
yet perhaps with divine purpose, that this Latin word
moritur cannot be declined by the grammarians according to
the rule followed by similar words. For oritur gives the
form ortiis est for the perfect ; and all similar verbs form
this tense from their perfect participles. But if we ask
the perfect of moritur, we get the regular answer, mortuus

» Ecclus. xi. 28. = Ts. vi. 5.

BOOK XIII.] WHAT DEATH GOD THREATENED. 533

est with a double u. For thus mortuus is pronounced, like
fatuiis, ardmis, conspicuus, and similar words, which are not
perfect participles but adjectives, and are declined without
regard to tense. But mortuus, though in form an adjective,
is used as perfect participle, as if that were to be decHned
which cannot be declined ; and thus it has suitably come
to pass that, as the thing itself cannot in point of fact be
declined, so neither can the word significant of the act be
declined. Yet, by the aid of our Eedeemer's grace, we may
manage at least to decline the second. For that is more
grievous still, and, indeed, of all evils the worst, since it con-
sists not in the sejDaration of soul and body, but in the uniting
of both in death eternal. And there, in striking contrast to
our present conditions, men will not be before or after death,
but always in death ; and thus never living, never dead, but
endlessly dying. And never can a man be more disastrously
in death than when death itself shall be deathless.

12. What death God intended, when He threatened our first parents with death
ij they should disobey His commandment.

Wlien, therefore, it is asked what death it w^as with which
God threatened our first parents if they should transgress
the commandment they had received from Him, and should
fail to preserve their obedience, — whether it was the death
of soul, or of body, or of the whole man, or that which is
called second death, — we must answer. It is all. For the
first consists of two ; the second is the complete death, which
consists of all. For, as the whole earth consists of m^any
lands, and the Church universal of many churches, so death
universal consists of all deaths. The first consists of two,
one of the body, and another of the soul. So that the first
death is a death of the whole man, since the soul without
God and without the body suffers punishment for a time ;
but the second is when the soul, without God but with the
body, suffers punishment everlasting. When, therefore, God
said to that first man whom he had placed in Paradise, re-
ferring to the forbidden fruit, " In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die,"'^ that threatening included not
only the first part of the first death, by which the soul is

' Gen. ii. 17.

534 THE CITY OF GOD. [dOOK XIII.

deprived of God ; nor only the subsequent part of the firSt
death, by ^vhich the body is deprived of the soul ; nor only
the whole first death itself, by which the soul is punished in
separation from God and from the body; — but it includes
whatever of death tliere is, even to tliat final death which is
called second, and to which none is subsequent.

13. IVhat tvas the first pimishment of the transgression of our first parents ?

For, as soon as our first parents had transgressed the com-
mandment, divine grace forsook them, and they were con-
founded at their own wickedness ; and therefore they took
fig-leaves (which were possibly the first that came to hand in
their troubled state of mind), and covered their shame ; for
though their members remained the same, they had shame
now where they had none before. They experienced a new
motion of their flesh, which had become disobedient to them,
in strict retribution of their own disobedience to God. For
the soul, revelling in its own liberty, and scorning to serve
God, was itself deprived of th^ command it had formerly
maintained over the body. And because it had wilfully
deserted its superior Lord, it no longer held its own inferior
servant ; neither could it hold the flesh subject, as it would
always have been able to do had it remained itself subject to
God. Then began the flesh to lust against the Spirit,^ in
which strife we are born, derivincj from the first trans^rression
a seed of death, and bearing in our members, and in our
vitiated nature, the contest or even victory of the flesh.

14. In what state man teas made hij Cod, and into what estate he fell by the
choice oj hi.s oicn will.

For God, the author of natures, not of vices, created man
upright; but man, being of his own will corrupted, and justly
condemned, begot corrupted and condenmcd children. For

/ we all were in that one man, since we all were that one man
who fell into sin by the woman who wiis made from him
before the sin. For not yet was the particular form created
and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to

[ live, but already the seminal nature was there from which

' Gal. V. 17,

BOOK XIII.] THE DEATH WHICH ADAM DIED. 535

we were to be propagated ; and this being vitiated by sin, and
bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could
not be born of man in any other state. And thus, from the \
bad use of free will, there originated the whole train of evil,
which, with its concatenation of miseries, convoys the human
race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the
destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only
being excepted who are freed by the grace of God.

15. That Adam in his sin forsook Ood ere God forsooh him, and that his
falling aicayfrom God was the first death of the soul.

It may perhaps be supposed that because God said, " Ye
shall die the death," -^ and not "deaths," we should understand
only that death which occurs when the soul is deserted by
God, who is its life ; for it was not deserted by God, and so
deserted Him, but deserted Him, and so was deserted by Him.
For its own will was the originator of its evil, as God was
the originator of its motions towards good, both in making it
when it was not, and in re-maldng it when it had fallen and
perishei But though we suppose that God meant only this
death, and that the words, " In the day ye eat of it ye shall
die the death," should be understood as meaning, " In the day
ye desert me in disobedience, I will desert you in justice," yet
assuredly in this death the other deaths also were threatened,
which were its inevitable consequence. For in the first stirring
of the disobedient motion which was felt in the flesh of the
disobedient soul, and which caused our first parents to cover
their shame, one death indeed is experienced, that, namely,
which occurs when God forsakes the soul. (This was inti-
mated by the words He uttered, when the man, stupefied by
fear, had hid himself, " Adam, where art thou ? " ^ — words
which He used not in ignorance of inquiry, but warning him
to consider where he was, since God was not with him.) But
when the soul itself forsook the body, corrupted and decayed
with age, the other death was experienced of which God had
spoken in pronouncing man's sentence, " Earth thou art, and
unto earth shalt thou return." ^ And of these two deaths that
first death of the whole man is composed. And this first deatli

^ Gen. ii. 17. = Gen. iii. 9. ^ Gen. i i. 19.

536 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

"is finally followed by the second, unless man be freed by grace.
For the body would not return to tlie earth from which it was
made, save only by the death proper to itself, wliich occurs
when it is forsaken of the soul, its life. And therefore it is
agreed among all Christians who truthfully hold the catholic
faith, that we are subject to the death of the body, not by the
law of nature, by which God ordained no death for man, but
by His righteous infliction on account of sin ; for God, taking
vengeance on sin, said to the man, in whom we all tlien were,
" Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

IG. Concerning the philosopher3 who think that the separation of soul and body
is not penal, thour/h Plato represents the svpreme Deify as promising to
the inferior gods that they shall never be dismissed from their bodies.

But tlie philosophers against whom we are defending the
city of God, that is. His Church, seem to themselves to have
good cause to deride us, because we say that the separation of the
soul from the body is to be held as part of man's punisliment.
For they suppose that the blessedness of the soul then only is
complete, when it is quite denuded of the body, and returns to
God a pure and simple, and, as it were, naked soul. On this
point, if I should find nothing in their own literature to refute
this opinion, I should be forced laboriously to demonstrate that
it is not the body, but the corruptibility of the body, which is
a burden to the soul. Hence that sentence of Scripture we
quoted in a foregoing book, " For the corruptible body presseth
down the soul."^ The word corruptible is added to sliow that
the soul is burdened, not by any body whatsoever, but by the
body such as it has become in consequence of sin. And even
tlioucjli the word had not been added, we could understand
nothing else. But wlien Plato most expressly declares that
the gods who are made by the Supreme have immortal bodies,
and when he introduces their ^laker himself promising tliem
as a great boon that they should abide in their bodies eternally,
and never by any death be loosed from them, why do tliose
adversaries ot ours, for the sake of troubling the Christian
faith, feign to be ignorant of Avhat they quite well know, and
even prefer to contradict themselves rather than lose an oppor-
tunity of contradicting us ? Hero are Plato's words, as Cicero

1 AViMluiM ix. 15.

BOOK XIII.] THEOnY THAT DEATH IS NOT PENxVL. 537

has translated them/ in which he introduces the Supreme
addressing the gods He had made, and saying, " Ye who are
sprung from a divine stock, consider of what works I am the
parent and author. These (your bodies) are indestructible
so long as I will it ; although all that is composed can be
destroyed. But it is wicked to dissolve what reason has
compacted. But, seeing that ye have been born, ye cannot
indeed be immortal and indestructible ; yet ye shall by no
means be destroyed, nor shall any fates consign you to death,
and prove superior to my will, which is a stronger assurance
of your perpetuity than those bodies to which ye were joined
when ye were born." Plato, you see, says that the gods are
both mortal by the connection of the body and soul, and yet
are rendered immortal by the will and decree of their Maker.
If, therefore, it is a punishment to the soul to be connected
with any body whatever, why does God address them as if
they were afraid ot death, that is, of the separation of soul and
body ? Why does He seek to reassure them by promising
them immortality, not in virtue of their nature, which is
composite and not simple, but by virtue of His invincible
will, whereby He can effect that neither things born die, nor
things compounded be dissolved, but preserved eternally ?

Whether this opinion of Plato's about the stars is true or
not, is another question. For we cannot at once grant to him
that these luminous bodies or globes, which by day and night
shine on the earth with the light of their bodily substance,
have also intellectual and blessed souls which animate each
its own body, as he confidently affirms of the universe itself,
as if it were one huge animal, in which all other animals were
contained.^ But this, as I said, is another question, which we

^ A translation of part of the Timceuff, given in a little book of Cicero's, De
Universo.

^ Plato, in the TimcBUs, represents the Demiiirgiis as constructing the kowios
or universe to be a complete representation oi the idea of animal. lie planted
in its centre a soul, spreading outwards so as to pervade the whole body of tlie
kosmos ; and then he introduced into it those various species of animals which
were contained in the idea of animal. Among these animals stand first the
celestial, the gods embodied in the stars ; and of these the oldest is the earth, set
in the centre of all, close packed round the great axis which traverses the centre
of the /cosmos. — See the Timoeus and Grote's Pinto, iii. 250 et scq.

538 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XTII.

have not undertaken to discuss at present. This much only
I deemed right to bring forward, in opposition to those who so
pride themselves on being, or on being called PLatonists, that
they blush to be Christians, and who cannot brook to be called
by a name which the common people also bear, lest they
vulgarize the philosophers' coterie, which is proud in proportion
to its exclusiveness. These men, seeking a weak point in the
Christian doctrine, select for attack the eternity of the body,
as if it w^re a contradiction to contend for the blessedness of
the soul, and to wish it to be always resident in the body,
bound, as it were, in a lamentable chain ; and this although
Plato, their own founder and master, affirms that it w^as granted
by the Supreme as a boon to the gods He had made, that
they should not die, that is, should not be separated from the
bodies with which He had connected them.

17. Against those who ajjirm that earthly bodies cannot be made incorruptihlc

and eternal.

These same philosophers further contend that teiTCstrial
bodies cannot be eternal, though they make no doubt that the
whole earth, which is itself the central member of their god, —
not, indeed, of the greatest, but yet of a great god, that is, of
this whole world, — is eternal. Since, then, the Supreme made
for them another god, that is, this world, superior to the other
gods beneath Him ; and since they suppose that this god is an
animal, having, as they affirm, a rational or intellectual soul
enclosed in the huge mass of its body, and having, as the fitly
situated and adjusted members of its body, the four elements,
whose union they wish to be indissoluble and eternal, lest
perchance this great god of theirs might some day perish ;
what reason is there that the earth, which is the central
member in the body of a greater creature, should be eternal,
and the bodies of other terrestrial creatures should not possibly
be eternal if God should so will it? But earth, say they, must
return to earth, out of which the terrestrial bodies of the
animals have been taken. For this, they say, is the reason
of the necessity of tlieir death and dissolution, and this the
manner of their restoration to the solid and eternal earth
whence they came. But if any one says the same thing of
fire, holdinc^ that the bodies wliich are derived from it to make

LOOK XIII.] ETERNITY OF THE BODY. 539

celestial beings must be restored to the universal fire, does
not the immortality which Plato represents these gods as
receiving from the Supreme evanesce in the heat of this
dispute ? Or does this not happen with those celestials
because God, whose will, as Plato says, overpowers all powers,
has willed it should not be so ? What, then, hinders God from
ordaining the same of terrestrial bodies ? And since, indeed,
Plato acknowledges that God can prevent things that are born
from dying, and things that are joined from being sundered,
and things that are composed from being dissolved, and can
ordain that the souls once allotted to their bodies should never
abandon them, but enjoy along with them immortality and
everlasting bliss, why may He not also effect that terrestrial
bodies die not ? Is God powerless to do everything that is
special to the Christian's creed, but powerful to effect every-
thing the Platonists desire ? The philosophers, forsooth, have
been admitted to a knowledge of the divine purposes and
power which has been denied to the prophets ! The truth is,
that the Spirit of God taught His prophets so much of His
will as He thought fit to reveal, but the philosophers, in their
efforts to discover it, were deceived by human conjecture.

But they should not have been so led astray, I will not say
by their ignorance, but by their obstinacy, as to contradict
themselves so frequently ; for they maintain, with all their
vaunted might, that in order to the happiness of the soul, it
must abandon not only its earthly body, but every kind of
body. And yet they hold that the gods, whose souls are most
blessed, are bound to everlasting bodies, the celestials to fiery
bodies, and the soul of Jove himself (or this world, as they
would have us believe) to all the physical elements which
compose this entire mass reaching from earth to heaven. For
this soul Plato believes to be extended and diffused by musical
numbers,^ from the middle of the inside of the earth, which
geometricians call the centre, outwards through all its parts
to the utmost heights and extremities of the heavens ; so that
this world is a very great and blessed immortal animal, whose
soul has both the perfect blessedness of wisdom, and never
leaves its own body, and whose body has life everlasting
^ On these niinabers see Grate's Plato, iii. 254.

540 THE CITY OF GOD. [dook xiil

from the soul, and by no means clo^^s or hinders it, though
itself be not a simple body, but compacted of so many and so
huge materials. Since, therefore, they allow so much to their
own conjectures, why do they refuse to believe that by the
divine will and power immortality can be conferred on earthly
bodies, in which the souls would be neither oppressed with
the burden of them, nor separated from them by any death,
but live eternally and blessedly ? Do they not assert that
their own gods so live in bodies of fire, and that Jove himself,
their king, so lives in the physical elements ? If, in order to
its blessedness, the soul must quit every kind of body, let
their gods flit from the starry spheres, and Jupiter from earth
to sky ; or, if they cannot do so, let them be pronounced
miserable. But neither alternative will these men adopt. For,
on the one hand, they dare not ascribe to their own gods a
departure from the body, lest they should seem to worship
mortals ; on the other hand, they dare not deny their happi-
ness, lest they should acknowdedge ^^Tetches as gods. There-
fore, to obtain blessedness, w^e need not quit every kind of
body, but only the corruptible, cumbersome, painful, dying, —
not such bodies as the goodness of God contrived for the first
man, but such only as man's sin entailed.

18. 0/ earthly bodies, which the philosophers affirm cannot he in heavenly places,
because whatever is of earth is by its natural weight attracted to earth.

But it is necessary, they say, that the natural weight of
earthly bodies either keep them on earth or draw them to it ;
and therefore they cannot be in heaven. Our first parents
were indeed on earth, in a well-wooded and fruitful spot,
which has been named Paradise. But let our advei'saries a
little more carefully consider tliis subject of earthly weight,
because it has important bearings, both on the ascension of
the body of Christ, and also on the resurrection body of the
saints. If human skill can by some contrivance fabricate
vessels that float, out of metals which sink as soon as they
are placed on tlie water, liow much more credible is it that
God, by some occult mode of operation, should even more
certainly cifect that these earthy masses be emancipated from
the downward pressure of their weight ? This cannot be im-
possible to that God by whose almighty will, according to

BOOK XIII.] THEORY THAT ALL BODIES ABE CLOGS. 541

Plato, neither things born perish, nor things composed dissolve,
especially since it is much more wonderful that spiritual and
bodily essences be conjoined than that bodies be adjusted to
other material substances. Can we not also easily believe
that souls, being made perfectly blessed, should be endowed
with the power of moving their earthy but incorruptible
bodies as they please, with almost spontaneous movement,
and of placing them where they please with the readiest
action ? If the angels transport whatever terrestrial creatures
they please from any place they please, and convey them
whither they please, is it to be believed that they cannot do
so without toil and the feeling of burden ? Why, then, may
we not believe that the spirits of the saints, made perfect and
blessed by divine grace, can carry their own bodies where
they please, and set them where they wiU ? For, though we
have been accustomed to notice, in bearing weights, that the
larger the quantity the greater the weight of earthy bodies is,
and that the greater the weight the more burdensome it is,
yet the soul carries the members of its own flesh with less
difficulty when they are massive with health, than in sickness
when they are wasted. And though the hale and strong man
feels heavier to other men carrying him than the lank and
sickly, yet the man himself moves and carries his own body
with less feeling of burden when he has the greater bulk of
vigorous health, than when his frame is reduced to a minimum
by hunger or disease. Of such consequence, in estimating the
weight of earthly bodies, even while yet corruptible and mortal,
is the consideration not of dead weight, but of the healthy
equilibrium of the parts. And what words can tell the dif-
ference between what we now call health and future immor-
tality ? Let not the philosophers, then, think to upset our
faith with arguments from the weight of bodies ; for I don't
care to inquire why they cannot believe an earthly body can
be in heaven, while the whole earth is suspended on nothing.
For perhaps the world keeps its central place by the same
law that attracts to its centre all heavy bodies. But this I
say, if the lesser gods, to whom Plato committed the creation
of man and the other terrestrial creatures, were able, as he
affirms, to withdraw from the fire its quality of burning, while

542 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

they left it that of lighting, so that it should shine through
the eyes ; and if to the supreme God Plato also concedes the
power of preserving from death things that have been born,
and of preserving from dissolution things that are composed
of parts so difTerent as body and spirit; — are we to hesitate to
concede to this same God the power to operate on the flesh of
him whom He has endowed with immortality, so as to w^ith-
draw its corruption but leave its nature, remove its burden-
some weight but retain its seendy form and members ? But
concerning our belief in the resurrection of the dead, and
concerning their immortal bodies, we sliall speak more at
large, God willing, in the end of this work.

19. Against the opinion of those who do not believe tliat the prlmlllve men icouhl
have been immortal if they had not sinned.

At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some
explanation regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say
then, that, except as the just consequence of sin, they would
not have been subjected even to this death, which is good to
the good, — this death, which is not exclusively known and
believed in by a few, but is known to all, by which soul and
body are separated, and by which the body of an animal
which w^as but now visibly living is now visibly dead. For
though there can be no manner of doubt that the souls of the
just and holy dead live in peaceful rest, yet so much better
would it be for them to be alive in healthy, well-conditioned
bodies, that even those who hold the tenet that it is most
blessed to be quit of every kind of body, condemn this opinion
in spite of themselves. For no one will dare to set wise men,
whether yet to die or akeady dead, — in other words, whether
already quit of the body, or shortly to be so, — above the im-
mortal gods, to wliom the Sujireme, in Plato, promises as a
nmnificent gift life indissoluble, or in eternal union with their
bodies. But this same Plato thinks that nothing better can
happen to men than that they pass tln-ough life piously and
justly, and, being separated from their bodies, be received
into the bosom of the gods, wlio never abandon theirs ; " that,
oblivious of the past, they may revisit the u])})er air, and
conceive the longing to return again to the body."' Virgil

* Virgil, u£ncid, vi. 730, 751.

BOOK XIII.] DEATH NOT NATUEALLY A NECESSITY. 543

is applauded for borrowing this from the Platonic system.
Assuredly Plato thinks that the souls of mortals cannot
always be in their bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed
by death; and, on the other hand, he thinks that without
bodies they cannot endure for ever, but with ceaseless alter-
nation pass from life to death, and from death to life. This
difference, however, he sets between wise men and the rest,
that they are carried after death to the stars, that each man
may repose for a while in a star suitable for him, and may
thence return to the labours and miseries of mortals when he
has become oblivious of his former misery, and possessed with
the desire of being embodied. Those, again, who have lived
foolishly transmigrate into bodies fit for them, whether human
or bestial Thus he has appointed even the good and wise
souls to a very hard lot indeed, since they do not receive
such bodies as they might always and even immortally in-
habit, but such only as they can neither permanently retain
nor enjoy eternal purity without. Of this notion of Plato's,
we have in a former book already said^ that Porphyry was
ashamed in the light of these Christian times, so that he not
only emancipated human souls from a destiny in the bodies of
beasts, but also contended for the liberation of the souls of
the wise from all bodily ties, so that, escaping from all flesh,
they might, as bare and blessed souls, dwell with the Father
time without end. And that he might not seem to be outbid
by Christ's promise of life everlasting to His saints, he also
established purified souls in endless felicity, without return to
their former woes ; but, that he might contradict Christ, he
denies the resurrection of incorruptible bodies, and maintains
that these souls will live eternally, not only without earthly
bodies, but without any bodies at all. And yet, whatever he
meant by this teaching, he at least did not teach that these
souls should offer no religious observance to the gods who
dwelt in bodies. And why did he not, unless because he did
not believe that the souls, even though separate from the body,
were superior to those gods ? Wherefore, if these philosophers
will not dare (as T think they will not) to set human souls
above the gods who are most blessed, and yet are tied eternally

1 Book X. 30.

544 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIII.

to their bodies, why do they find that absurd which the
Christian faith preaches/ namely, that our first parents were
so created that, if they had not sinned, they would not have
been dismissed from tlieir bodies by any death, but would
have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their
obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies ;
and further, that the saints will in the resurrection inhabit
those very bodies in which they have here toiled, but in such
sort that neither shall any corruption or unwieldiness be
suffered to attach to their flesh, nor any grief or trouble to
cloud their felicity ?

20. Tluit thefiesli now resting in peace shall be raised to a perfection not
enjoyed by ihejlesh of our first parenia.

Thus the souls of departed saints are not affected by the
death which dismisses them from their bodies, because their
flesh rests in hope, no matter what indignities it receives after
sensation is gone. For they do not desire that their bodies be
forgotten, as Plato thinks fit, but rather, because they remember
what has been promised by Him who deceives no man, and
who gave them security for the safe keeping even of the hairs
of their head, they with a longing patience wait in hope of the
resurrection of tlieir bodies, in which they have suffered many
hardships, and are now to suffer never again. For if they did
not " hate their own flesh," when it, with its native infirmity,
opposed their will, and had to be constrained by the spiritual
law, how much more shall they love it, when it shall even
itself have become spiritual ! For as, when the spirit serves
the flesh, it is fitly called carnal, so, when the flesh serves the
spirit, it will justly be called spiritual Xot that it is converted
into spirit, as some fancy from the words, " It is sown in cor-
ruption, it is raised in incorruption," ^ but because it is sub-
ject to the spirit with a perfect and mai'vellous readiness of
obedience, and responds in all things to the will that has entered
on immortality, — all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness
being removed. For the body will not only be better than it
was here in its best estate of health, but it will surpass the

' A catena of passa^'os, .showing that this is the catholic Christian faith, will
be found in Bull's State of Man before the Fall ( WorkSy vol. ii.).
» 1 Cor. xr. 42.

BOOK XIIT.] OF PARADISR 545

bodies of our first parents ere they sinned. For, though they
were not to die unless they should sin, yet they used food as
men do now, their bodies not being as yet spiritual, but animal
only. And though they decayed not with years, nor drew
nearer to death, — a condition secured to them in God's mar-
vellous grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the
forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise, — yet they took other
nourishment, thoucjh not of that one tree, which was inter- ,
dieted not because it was itself bad, but for the sake of com-
mending a pure and simple obedience, which is the great virtue I
of the rational creature set under the Creator as his Lord. For,
though no evil thing was touched, yet if a thing forbidden
was touched, the very disobedience was sin. They were, then,
nourished by other fruit, which they took that their animal
bodies might not suffer the discomfort of hunger or thirst ; but
they tasted the tree of life, that death might not steal upon
them from any quarter, and that they might not, spent with
age, decay. Other fruits were, so to speak, their nourishment,
but this their sacrament. So that the tree of life would seem
to have been in the terrestrial Paradise what the wisdom of
God is in the spiritual, of which it is written, " She is a tree
of life to them that lay hold upon her." -^

21. Of Paradise, that it can he understood in a spiritual sense loitliout sacri-
ficing the historic truth of the narrative regarding the real place.

On this account some allegorize all that concerns Paradise
itself, where the first men, the parents of the human race, are,
according to the truth of holy Scripture, recorded to have been ;
and they understand all its trees and fruit-bearing plants as
virtues and habits of life, as if they had no existence in the
external world, but were only so spoken of or related for the
sake of spiritual meanings. As if tliere could not be a real
terrestrial Paradise ! As if there never existed these two
women, Sarah and Hagar, nor the two sons who were born
to Abraham, the one of the bond woman, the other of the free,
because the apostle says that in them the two covenants were
prefigured ; or as if water never flowed from the rock when
Moses struck it, because therein Christ can be seen in a figure,
as the same apostle says, " Now that rock was Christ 1 " ^ Xo

1 Tiov. iii. IS. 2 1 (J^^^._ X. 4.

VOL. L 2 M

546 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XITT.

one, then, denies that Paradise may signify the life of the
blessed ; its four rivers, the four virtues, prudence, fortitude,
temperance, and justice ; its trees, all useful knowledge ; its
fruits, the customs of the godly ; its tree of life, wisdom her-
self, the mother of all good ; and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, the experience of a broken commandment. The
punishment which God appointed was in itself a just, and there-
fore a good thing ; but man's experience of it is not good.

Tliese things can also and more profitably be understood of
the Church, so that they become prophetic foreshadowings of
things to come. Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in
the Canticles ;^ the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels ;
the fruit-trees the saints, and the fruit their works ; the tree
of life is the holy of holies, Christ ; the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, the will's free choice. For if man despise
the will of God, he can only destroy himself ; and so he learns
the difference between consecrating himself to the common
good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is
abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with
fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to
feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, " My soul is cast down
within me," ^ and when chastened, may say, " Because of his
strength I will wait upon Thee." ^ These and similar allegorical
interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without
giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict
truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative
of facts.*

22. That the bodies of the sahits shall after the resurrection he spiritual, and
yet flesh shall not be changed into spirit.

The bodies of the righteous, then, such as they shall be in
the resurrection, sliall need neither any fruit to preserve them
from dying of disease or the wasting decay of old age, nor any
other physical nourishment to allay the cravings of liunger or
of thirst ; for tliey shall be invested with so sure and every
1 Cant. iv. 13. ^ p^ ^ijj q 3 p^ j^^. 9

* Those wlio wLsh to pursue tliis subject will find a ]>retty full collection of
opinions in the Icarnetl commentary on Genesis by the Jesuit Pererius. Philo
was, of course, the leadin;^ culprit, but Ambrose and other Church fathers went
nearly a.s fur. Augustine comlemns the Sebucians for this among other heresies,
that they denied a visible Paradise. — Dc Hares. 59.

BOOK XIII.] THE NATURAL AND SPIPtlTUAL BODY. 547

way inviolable an immortality, that they shall not eat save
when they choose, nor be under the necessity of eating, while
they enjoy the power of doing so. For so also was it with
the angels who presented themselves to the eye and touch of
men, not because they could do no otherwise, but because
they were able and desirous to suit themselves to men by a
kind of manhood ministry. For neither are we to suppose,
when men receive them as guests, that the angels eat only in
appearance, though to any who did not know them to be
angels they might seem to eat from the same necessity as our-
selves. So these words spoken in the Book of Tobit, " You
saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision ; " ^ that is, you thought
I took food as you do for the sa>.e of refreshing my body.
But if in the case of the angels another opinion seems more
capable of defence, certainly our faith leaves no room to doubt
regarding our Lord Himself, that even after His resurrection,
and when now in spiritual but yet real flesh, He ate and drank
with His disciples ; for not the power, but the need, of eating
and drinking is taken from these bodies. And so they will
be spiritual, not because they shall cease to be bodies, but
because they shall subsist by the quickening spirit.

23. What we are to understand by the animal and spiritual body ; or of those
who die in Adam, and of those who are made alive in Christ.

For as those bodies of ours, that have a living soul, though
not as yet a quickening spirit, are called soul-informed bodies,
and yet are not souls but bodies, so also those bodies are
called spiritual, — yet God forbid we should therefore suppose
them to be spirits and not bodies, — which, being quickened by
the Spirit, have the substance, but not the unwieldiness and cor-
ruption of flesh. Man will then be not earthly but heavenly, —
not because the body will not be that very body which wa^
made of earth, but because by its heavenly endowment it will
be a fit inhabitant of heaven, and this not by losing its nature,
but by changing its quality. The first man, of the earth
earthy, was made a living soul, not a quickening spirit, — which
rank was reserved for him as the reward of obedience. And
tlierefore his body, which required meat and drink to satisfy
hunger and thirst, and which had no absolute and indestructible

' Tobit xii. 19.

54<S THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XTII.

immortality, but by means of tlie tree of life warded off
the necessity of dying, and was thus maintained in the flower
of youth, — this body, I say, was doubtless not spiritual, but
animal ; and yet it would not have died but that it provoked
God's threatened vengeance by offending. And though susten-
ance was not denied him even outside Paradise, yet, being for-
bidden the tree of life, he was delivered over to the wasting of
time, at least in respect of that life which, had he not sinned,
he might have retained perpetually in Paradise, though only
in an animal body, till such time as it became spiritual in
acknowledgment of his obedience.

Wherefore, although we understand that this manifest death,
which consists in the separation of soul and body, was also
signified by God when He said, " In the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die," ^ it ought not on that account to
seem absurd that they w^ere not dismissed from the body on tliat
very day on which they took the forbidden and death-bringing
fruit. For certainly on that very day their nature was altered
for the worse and vitiated, and by their most just banishment
from the tree of life they were involved in the necessity even
of bodily death, in w^hich necessity we are born. And there-
fore the apostle does not say, " The body indeed is doomed to
die on account of sin," but he says, •' The body indeed is
dead because of sin." Then he adds, " But if the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you. He
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your
(uortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." ^ Then
accordingly shall the body become a quickening spirit which
is now a living soul ; and yet the apostle calls it " dead," be-
cause already it lies under the necessity of dying. But in
Paradise it was so made a living soul, though not a quickening
spirit, that it could not properly be called dead, lor, save
through the commission of sin, it could not come under the
power of death. Now, since God by the words, " Adam, where
art thou ?" pointed to the death of the soul, which results
when He abandons it, and since in the words, " Earth thou
art, and unto earth shalt thou return," ^ He signified the
death of the body, which results when the soul departs from

» Gen. ii. 17. « noni. viii. 10, 11. 3 q^.,,, m jg.

BOOK XTII.] CONSTITUTION OF ADAM's NATURE. 549

it, we are led, therefore, to believe that He said nothing of
the second death, wishing it to be kept hidden, and reserving
it for the New Testament dispensation, in which it is most
plainly revealed. And this He did in order that, first of all,
it might be evident that this first death, which is common to
all, was the result of that sin which in one man became com-
mon to all.^ But the second death is not common to all, those
being excepted who were " called according to His purpose.
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-
born among many brethren." ^ Those the grace of God has,
by a Mediator, delivered from the second death.

Thus the apostle states that the first man was made in an
animal body. For, wishing to distinguish the animal body
which now is from the spiritual, which is to be in the resur-
rection, he says, ''It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption : it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory :
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is so^ti a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Then, to prove
this, he goes on, "There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body." And to show what the animated body is,
he says, " Thus it was written. The first man Adam was made
a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."^
He wished thus "^.o show what the animated body is, though
Scripture did not say of the first man Adam, when his soul
was created by the breath of God, " Man was made in an
animated body," but " Man was made a living soul." * By
these words, therefore, " The first man was made a living soul,"
the apostle wishes man's animated body to be understood.
But how he wishes the spiritual body to be understood he
shows when he adds, " But the last Adam was made a
quickening spirit," plainly referring to Christ, who has so
risen from the dead that He cannot die any more. He then
goes on to say, "But that was not first which is spiritual,
but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is
spiritual." And here he much more clearly asserts that he
referred to the animal body when he said that the first man

^ "In uno commune factum est omnibus." ^ IJom. viii. 28, 29.

3 1 Cor. XV. 42-45. * (Jen. ii. 7.

550 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIIT.

was made a living soul, and to the spiritual when he said that
the last man was made a quickening spirit. The animal
body is the first, being such as the first Adam had, and which
would not have died had he not sinned, being such also as
we now have, its nature being changed and vitiated by sin to
the extent of bringing us under the necessity of death, and
being such as even Christ condescended first of all to assume,
not indeed of necessity, but of clioice ; but afterwards comes
the spiritual body, which already is worn by anticipation by
Christ as our head, and will be worn by His members in the
resurrection of the dead.

Then the apostle subjoins a notable difference between these
two men, saying, " The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the
second man is the Lord from heaven. As is tlie earthy, such
are they also that are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such
are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly." ^ So he elsewhere says, " As many of you as have
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ;"^ but in very
deed this shall be accomplished when that which is animal in
us by our birth shall have become spiritual in our resurrec-
tion. For, to use his words again, " We are saved by hope.'"^
Now we bear the image of the earthly man by the propaga-
tion of sin and death, which pass on us by ordinary genera-
tion ; but we bear the image of the lieavenly by the grace of
pardon and life eternal, which regeneration confers upon us
through the Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
And He is the heavenly Man of Paul's passage, because He
came from heaven to be clothed with a body of earthly mor-
tality, that He might clothe it with heavenly immortality.
And lie calls otliers heavenly, because by grace they become
His members, that, together with them. He may become one
Christ, as head and body. In the same epistle he puts this yet
more clearly : " Since by man came death, by Man came also
the resurrection of tlie dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Clirist shall all be made alive,"* — that is to say, in a
spiritual body which shall be made a quickening spirit. Not

1 1 Cor. XV. 47-19. 'Gal. iii. 27.

3 Koiu. viii. •:•!. ^ 1 Cor. xv. -Jl, 22.

BOOK XIII.] ADAM A LIVING SOUL. 551

that all who die in Adam shall be members of Christ, — for the
great majority shall be punished in eternal death, — but he
uses the word " all " in both clauses, because, as no one dies
in an animal body except in Adam, so no one is quickened
a spiritual body save in Christ. We are not, then, by any
means to suppose that we shall in the resurrection have such
a body as the first man had before he sinned, nor that the
words, " As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy,"
are to be understood of that which was brought about by sin ;
for we are not to think that Adam had a spiritual body before
he fell, and that, in punishment of his sin, it was changed into
an animal body. If this be thought, small heed has been
given to the words of so great a teacher, who says, " There is
a natural body, there is also a spiritual body ; as it is written.
The first man Adam w^as made a living soul." Was it after
sin he was made so ? or was not this the primal condition
of man from which the blessed apostle selects his testmiony
to show what the animal body is ?

2-4. How we must understand that breathing of God by lohich *^ the first man
was made a living soul," and that also by which the Lord conveyed His
Spirit to His discijjles ivhen He said, ' ' Receive ye tJie Holy Ghost. "

Some have hastily supposed from the words, " God breathed
into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a
living soul," ^ that a soul was not then first given to man, but
that the soul already given was quickened by the Holy Ghost.
They are encouraged in this supposition by the fact that the
Lord Jesus after His resurrection breathed on His disciples,
and said, " Eeceive ye the Holy Spirit." * From this they
suppose that the same thing was effected in either case, as
if the evangelist had gone on to say, And they became living
souls. But if he had made this addition, we should only
understand that the Spirit is in some way the life of souls,
and that without Him reasonable souls must be accounted
dead, though their bodies seem to live before our eyes. But
that this was not what happened when man was created, the
very words of the narrative sufficiently show : " And God made
man dust of the earth ;" which some have thought to render
more clearly by the words, " And God formed man of the clay

1 Gen. ii. 7. ^ John xx. 22.

THE CITY OF GOD. [liOOK XIIT.

of the earth." For it had before been said that " there went
up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the
ground," ^ in order that the reference to clay, formed of this
moisture and dust, might be understood. For on this verse
there immediately follows tlie announcement, "And God
created man dust of the earth ;" so those Greek manuscripts
have it from which this passage has been translated into
Latin. But whether one prefers to read " created " or "formed''
where the Greek reads eirXacrev, is of little importance ; yet
"formed'' is the better rendering. But those who preferred
" created " thought they thus avoided the ambiguity arising
from the fact, that in the Latin language the usage obtains
that those are said to form a thing who frame some feigned
and fictitious thing. This man, then, who was created of the
dust of the earth, or of the moistened dust or clay, — this " dust
of the earth " (that I may use the express words of Scripture)
was made, as the apostle teaches, an animated body when he
received a souL This man, he says, " was made a living soul;"
that is, this fashioned dust was made a living souL

They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be
called a man ; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone,
but a being composed of both. This, indeed, is true, that the
soul is not the whole man, but the better part of man ; the
body not the whole, but the inferior part of man ; and that
then, when both are joined, they receive the name of man,
— which, however, they do not severally lose even when we
speak of them singly. For who is prohibited from saying, in
colloquial usage, " That man is dead, and is now at rest or in
torment," though this can be spoken only of the soul ; or " He
is buried in such and such a place," though this refers only
to the body ? Will they say that Scripture follows no such
usage ? On the contrary, it so thoroughly adopts it, that even
while a man is alive, and body and soul are united, it calls
each of them singly by the name " 7nan" speaking of the soul
as the " inward man," and of tlie body as the " outward man,"^
as if there were two men, thougli both together are indeed but
one. But we must understand in what sense man is said to
be in the image of God, and is yet dust, and to return to the

» Gen. ii. 6. " 2 Cor. iv. 16.

BOOK XIII.] god's breathing UPON ADAM. 553

dust. The former is spoken of the rational soul, which God
by His breathing, or, to speak more appropriately, by His in-
spiration, conveyed to man, that is, to his body ; but the latter
refers to his body, which God formed of the dust, and to
which a soul was given, that it might become a living body,
that is, that man mioht become a living soul.

Wherefore, when our Lord breathed on His disciples, and
said, " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost," He certainly wished it to
be understood that the Holy Ghost was not only the Spirit
of the Father, but of the only-begotten Son Himself. For
the same Spirit is, indeed, the Spirit of tlie Father and of
the Son, maldng with them the trinity of Father, Son, and
Spirit, not a creature, but the Creator. For neither was that
material breath which proceeded from the mouth of His flesh
the very substance and nature of the Holy Spirit, but rather
the intimation, as I said, that the Holy Spirit was common
to the Father and to the Son ; for they have not each a sepa-
rate Spirit, but both one and the same. Now this Spirit is
always spoken of in sacred Scripture by the Greek word
irvevfia, as the Lord, too, named Him in the place cited when
He gave Him to His disciples, and intimated the gift by the
breathing of His lips ; and there does not occur to me any
place in the whole Scriptures where He is otherwise named.
But in this passage where it is said, " And the Lord formed
man dust of the earth, and breathed, or inspired, into his face
the breath of life ; " the Greek has not irvevfia, the usual word
for the Holy Spirit, but wvo-q, a word more frequently used
of the creature than of the Creator ; and for this reason some
Latin interpreters have preferred to render it by "breath"
rather than " spirit." For this word occurs also in the Greek
in Isa. Ivii. 16, where God says, "I have made all breath,"
meaning, doubtless, all souls. Accordingly, this word irvor) is
sometimes rendered " breath," sometimes " spirit," sometimes
" inspiration," sometimes " aspiration," sometimes " soul," even
when it is used of God. Ilvev^a, on the other hand, is uniformly
rendered " spirit," whether of man, of whom the apostle says,
*^ For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him?"^ or of beast, as in the book of

» 1 Cor. ii. 11.

554 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XIIL

Solomon, "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth up-
ward, and the spirit of the beast tliat goeth downward to the
earth?"* or of that physical spirit which is called wind, for
so the Psalmist calls it : " Fire and hail ; snow and vapours ;
stormy wind ; " ^ or of the uncreated Creator Spirit, of whom
the Lord said in the gospel, " Iieceive ye the Holy Ghost,"
indicating the gift by the breathing of His mouth ; and when
He says, " Go ye and baptize all nations in the name of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," ^ words which very
expressly and excellently commend the Trinity ; and where it
is said, " God is a Spirit ; " * and in very many other places
of the sacred writings. In all these quotations from Scrip-
ture we do not find in the Greek the word irvorj used, but
TTvevfjLa, and in the Latin, not flatus, but sjnrihts. ^^^le^efo^e,
referring again to that place w^here it is written, " He inspired,"
or, to speak more properly, " breathed into his face the breath
of life," even though the Greek had not used irvo-n (as it has)
but TTvevfia, it would not on that account necessarily follow
that the Creator Spirit, w^ho in the Trinity is distinctively
called the Holy Ghost, was meant, since, as has been said, it
is plain that irvevfia is used not only of the Creator, but also
of the creature.

But, say they, when the Scripture used the word "spirit,"*
it would not have added "of life" unless it meant us to
understand the Holy Spirit ; nor, w^hen it said, " ^Man became
a soul," would it also have inserted the word " living " unless
that life of the soul w^ere signified which is imparted to it
from above by the gift of God. For, seeing that the soul by
itself has a proper life of its own, what need, they ask, was
there of adding living, save only to show that the life which
is given it by tlie Holy Spirit was meant ? "^^^lat is this but
to fight strenuously for their own conjectures, wliile they care-
lessly neglect tlie teaching ot Scripture ? AVitliout troubling
themselves much, tliey might have found in a preceding page
of this very book of Genesis the words, " Let the earth bring
forth the living soul,"® when all the teiTcstrial animals were
created. Then at a slight interval, but still in the same book,

^ Kcclcs. iii. 21. ' Ps. cxlviii. 8. 3 jjatt. xxviii. 19.

< John iv. 2i. ^ "Brt-ath," Kn^. vlT. " Con. i. '24.

BOOK XIII.] Christ's bueathing on the disciples. 555

was it impossible for them to notice this verse, " All in whose
nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land,
died," by which it was signified that all the animals which
lived on the earth had perished in the deluge ? If, then, we
find that Scripture is accustomed to speak both of the " living
soul " and the " spirit of life " even in reference to beasts ; and
if in this place, where it is said, " All things which have the
spirit of life," the word Trvorj, not Trvevfia, is used ; why may
we not say, What need was there to add " living," since the
soul cannot exist without being alive ? or, What need to add
" of life " after the word spirit ? But we understand that Scrip-
ture used these expressions in its ordinary style so long as it
speaks of animals, that is, animated bodies, in which the soul
serves as the residence of sensation ; but when man is spoken
of, we forget the ordinary and established usage of Scripture,
whereby it signifies that man received a rational soul, which
was not produced out of the waters and the earth like the
other living creatures, but was created by the breath of God.
Yet this creation was so ordered that the human soul should
live in an animal body, like those other animals of which the
Scripture said, "Let the earth produce every living soul,"
and regarding which it again says that in them is the breath
of life, where the word ttvoij and not irvevfia is used in the
Greek, and where certainly not the Holy Spirit, but their
spirit, is signified under that name.

But, again, they object that breath is understood to have
been emitted from the mouth of God ; and if we believe tliat
is the soul, we must consequently acknowledge it to be of the
same substance, and equal to that wisdom, wliich says, "I
come out of the mouth of the Most High."^ Wisdom, indeed,
does not say it was breathed out of the mouth of God, but
proceeded out of it. But as we are able, when we breathe,
to make a breath, not of our own human nature, but of the
surrounding air, which we inhale and exhale as we draw our
breath and breathe again, so almighty God was able to make
breath, not of His own nature, nor of the creature beneath
Him, but even of nothing; and this breath, when He com-
municated it to man's body. He is most appropriately said to

^ Ecclus. xxiv. 3.

5 .J 6 THE CITY OF GOD. [BOOK XITT.

have breathed or inspired, — the Immaterial breathing it also
immaterial, but tlie Immutable not also the immutable ; for
it was created, He uncreated. Yet, that these persons who
are forward to quote Scripture, and yet know not the usages
of its language, may know that not only what is equal and
consubstantial with God is said to proceed out of His mouth,
let them hear or read what God says : " So then because thou
art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out
of my mouth." ^

There is no ground, then, fur our objecting, when the apostle
so expressly distinguishes the animal body from the spiritual,
— that is to say, the body in which we now are from that in
which we are to be. He says, " It is sown a natural body, it
is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there
is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam
was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quicken-
ing spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual
The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the
Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that
are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy,
we shall also bear the imaGje of the heavenlv."^ Oi all which
words of his w^e have previously spoken. The animal body,
accordingly, in which the apostle says that the first man
Adam was made, was not so made that it could not die at
all, but so that it should not die unless he should have sinned.
That body, indeed, which shall be made spiritual and innnortal
by the quickening Spirit shall not be able to die at aU ; as
the soul has been created immortal, and therefore, although by
sin it may be said to die, and does lose a certain life of its
own, namely, the Spirit of God, by whom it was enabled to
live wisely and blessedly, yet it does not cease living a kind
of life, though a miserable, because it is immortal by creation.
So, too, the rebellious angels, though by sinning they did in
a sense die, because they forsook God, the Fountain of life,
which while they drank they were able to live wisely and
well, yet they could not so die as to utterly cease living and

1 r.ev. iii. IG. - 1 Cor. xv. 41-19.

BOOK XIII.] CONCLUSION. '^ 6."/

feeling, for they are immortals by creation. And so, after tlie
final judgment, they shall be hurled into the second death,
and not even there be deprived of life or of sensation, but
shall suffer torment. But those men who have been embraced
by God's gi^ace, and are become the fellow-citizens of the holy
angels who have continued in bliss, shall never more either
sin or die, being endued with spiritual bodies ; yet, being
clothed with immortality, such as the angels enjoy, of which
they cannot be divested even by sinning, the nature of their
flesh shall continue the same, but all carnal corruption and
unwieldiness shall be removed.

There remains a question which must bo discussed, and,
by the help of the' Lord God of truth, solved : If the motion
of concupiscence in the unruly members of our first parents
arose out of their sin, and only when the divine grace deserted
them; and if it was on that occasion that their eyes were
opened to see, or, more exactly, notice their nakedness, and
that they covered their shame because the shameless motion
of their members was not subject to their will, — how, then,
would they have begotten cliildren had they remained sinless
as they were created ? But as this book must be concluded,
and so large a question cannot be summarily disposed of, we
may relegate it to the following book, in which it will be more
conveniently treated.

MURHAY AST) GTHB, FDINBUUCri,
FKlNThKS TO HEl'. MAJEblYS STAHO-NEKY OiFlCff

DATE DUE

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